PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, April 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. and Cuban leaders exchanged good-will gestures as hemispheric leaders gathered on Friday for the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

During Thursday's visit to Mexico, U.S. President Barack Obama said that his recent decision to remove travel and money-sending restrictions on Cuba were intended to "recast our relationship," and that it was now up to Cuba to take the next move.

Hours later, Cuban President Raul Castro told a regional summit in Venezuela that his country, though still under a 47-year-old U.S. embargo, was open for talks with Washington about "everything."

"We have sent word to the U.S. government in private and in public that we are willing to discuss everything -- human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything," he said.

The Cuba issue is not on the official agenda of the Americas summit which will be kicked off in the evening by 34 leaders from the western hemisphere.

But the U.S. president, making his first visit to Latin Americas ince taking office, was under mounting pressure from regional leaders, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who have been calling for the inclusion of Cuba into regional bodies like the Organization of American States and the end of the embargo against Cuba.

Chavez said Thursday at the Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) that Venezuela would vote against the final declaration of the Summit of the Americas as a gesture to protest against the U.S. policy toward Cuba.

"The final declaration is hard to digest. It is misplaced both in time and space, as if time had stopped," Chavez said as he greeted presidents of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, and Nicaragua attending the ALBA summit.

"We do not have great expectations about the Summit of the Americas," Chavez added.

The draft declaration is expected to be signed by 34 leaders from the western hemisphere on Sunday at the end of the three-day event.