Cuban foreign minister says Castro "fine"

BRASILIA, Aug 24 (Reuters) Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro ''is fine,'' Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said responding to recent speculation about the aging revolutionary's health.

''Fidel is fine and is very disciplined about his recovery,'' Perez Roque told reporters yesterday during a meeting of Latin American and Asian officials in Brazil's capital, Brasilia.

Castro, who turned 81 on August 13, has not appeared in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery that forced him to hand over power to his brother Raul more than a year ago.

No new pictures of Castro have been released since an interview broadcast by Cuban television on June 5, and last month he missed the July 26 Rebellion Day rally that was led by his 76-year-old brother, as acting president.

Cuba's communist authorities say the elder Castro, who relinquished power July 26, 2006, for the first time since his 1959 revolution, is still consulted on major policy decisions, but they no longer insist he will be returning to office.

Castro has kept a public presence in Cuba by writing dozens of newspaper columns and essays from his sick bed.

A column attributed to Castro was published yesterday by the Communist Party newspaper Granma in defense of appeals by five Cuban spies jailed in the United States a decade ago. It criticized his ''perfidious'' archenemy, the US government.

REUTERS AK BST0425