The State Department has rejected a call for diplomatic talks with Cuba. Cuba’s acting president, Raul Castro, called for negotiations with the United States to resolve its long-standing isolation of the Cuban government.

Raul Castro: “We are convinced that the exit to the conflicts that affect humanity is not war but in political solutions. We take this opportunity to once again state that we are willing to resolve at the negotiating table the long-standing dispute between the United States and Cuba as long as they accept, as we have said in another occasion, our condition as a country that does not tolerate shadows on its independence.”

State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack responded on Monday.

Sean McCormack: “I don’t see how that really furthers the cause of democracy in that country, where you have dialogue with a dictator-in-waiting who wants to continue the form of governance that has really kept down the Cuban people for all these decades.”