PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- President Barack Obama is ready to start a new era of engagement with Cuba, he assured his regional counterparts Friday.

''The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,'' Obama said in his opening remarks at the Fifth Summit of the Americas. ``Let me be clear: I am not interested in talking for the sake of talking. But I do believe that we can move U.S.-Cuban relations in a new direction.''

His remarks followed a barrage of criticism -- before and during the 34-nation summit -- over the decades-old U.S. sanctions against Cuba and the communist nation's suspension as a member of the Organization of American States.

Pre-summit gatherings focused heavily on building consensus on the U.S.-Cuba issue and four other leaders who also addressed the region's most important gathering called for a diplomatic truce between Washington and Havana.

The 14-member Caribbean Community ''stands ready to assist . . . reversing 50 years of non-engagement,'' said Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow.

Obama acknowledged it would take time to repair a history of mistrust but said, ``there are critical steps we can take toward a new day.

READY TO ENGAGE

''I have already changed a Cuba policy that has failed to advance liberty or opportunity for the Cuban people,'' he said. `` . . . Over the past two years, I have indicated -- and I repeat today -- that I am prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues -- from human rights, free speech, and democratic reform to drugs, migration, and economic issues.''

During his 16-minute speech, Obama also outlined three priorities for the region: economic assistance; energy and climate partnerships and security cooperation. He reiterated his request of $448 million to help victims of the economic recession outside the U.S. shores, announced a new Microfinance Growth Fund for the region and promised to spend $30 million to strengthen security cooperation.

''I didn't come here to debate the past -- I came here to deal with the future,'' he said. ``As neighbors, we have a responsibility to each other and to our citizens. And by working together, we can take important steps forward to advance prosperity, security, and liberty.''

But Cuba continued on the summit front-burner, a day after Cuban President Raúl Castro gave an uncharacteristically fiery speech more befitting of his brother Fidel, saying he was willing to talk with Washington -- and swap spies for political prisoners.

Cuba has long said it would negotiate as long as there were no preconditions and its sovereignty was ''respected.'' But Castro knows this time is different, because now someone may actually be listening.

DIFFICULT SPOT

Experts say Castro's latest salvo offering to trade political prisoners jailed in Cuba for five convicted Cuban intelligence agents serving time in U.S. prisons puts Obama in a difficult spot.

Obama could have the chance to help free 200 people who are jailed for offenses that vary from independent journalism to planting bombs in a quest to destabilize the state.

But many Cuba-watchers say Obama would be ill-advised to equate political prisoners with convicted spies.

''President Obama has to be very careful -- he could wind up negotiating with himself or playing chicken with himself,'' said former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutiérrez, one of the architects of President George W. Bush's Cuba policy. ``The president has gone down a path that other presidents also chose. The president would be wise to study history.''

SHOT AT CARTER

Gutiérrez was taking a thinly veiled shot at President Jimmy Carter, who 30 years ago negotiated with Cuba to release political prisoners, only to later see Castro unleash prisoners and mental patients on the Mariel boat lift.

But Carter's chief negotiator said that while a prisoner swap is not realistic ''at this time,'' Obama can't dismiss the opportunity to get wrongly convicted people freed.

''I hope Obama tries to learn some of the history before he embarks on it,'' said former White House official Robert Pastor, now a professor of international affairs at American University.

Pastor was director of Latin America for the National Security Council under Carter and negotiated directly with Fidel Castro. During his administration, 3,900 prisoners were freed from Cuban prisons, Pastor said.

''This is a moment very much like what we faced in 1978,'' Pastor said.

In Cuba, the news that Castro was offering deals was not welcomed by the Ladies in White, a dissident group of wives and mothers of political prisoners.

''Our husbands are ready to serve their sentences rather than be traded for spies, because they are not spies,'' said Ladies in White leader Laura Pollán, whose husband Héctor Maseda was sentenced to 20 years for being an opposition journalist.

Miami Herald staff writer Susannah Nesmith contributed to this report.

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