HAVANA , Cuba ( CNN ) -- Former Cuban President Fidel Castro says he is open to the idea of meeting with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama . Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has largely been out of the political scene since falling ill in 2006 . `` With Obama , one can talk whenever he wants , because we 're not preachers of violence or war , '' the communist leader wrote in an essay published Thursday on a state-run Web site . `` He must be reminded that the carrot-and-stick theory can not be applied in our country . '' Friday 's missive marked the second time in recent weeks that a Cuban leader has said he is open to meeting with Obama . In the latest issue of The Nation , actor Sean Penn writes of his recent conversation in Havana with Raúl Castro , who took over as president this year from his ailing brother . According to Penn , Raúl Castro told him , `` Perhaps we could meet at Guantanamo . We must meet and begin to solve our problems , and at the end of the meeting , we could give the president a gift . ... We could send him home with the American flag that waves over Guantanamo Bay . '' Obama has called for the U.S. detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay naval base on the island of Cuba to be closed . Despite the indications that the Cuban leadership is open to warmer relations with its neighbor to the north after 47 years of a U.S.-imposed trade embargo , some in Havana expressed skepticism that the impending change in leadership in the United States will translate in to a changed Cuban policy . `` Obama is a product of the American empire , '' Carlos Pose said . But Elisany , a high school student , said she 's hopeful . `` We 've got to wait and see . I hope things change . ''
`` We 're not preachers of violence or war , '' Castro writes in essay . Actor Sean Penn writes that Castro 's brother also open to meeting . Comment: