AKIPRESS.COM - U.S. President Barack Obama is welcome to visit Cuba but not to meddle in its internal affairs, a senior foreign ministry official said on Wednesday on the eve of the first anniversary of the two countries' historic rapprochement.

"The day that the president of the United States decides to visit Cuba, he will be welcome," Josefina Vidal, director of U.S. affairs in the Cuban foreign ministry, told Reuters.

"Regarding what I just said, I'd like to recall that Cuba has always said ... it is not going to negotiate matters that are inherent to its internal system in exchange for an improvement in or the normalization of relations with the United States," Vidal said.

Obama told Yahoo News in an interview about the Dec. 17 anniversary that he hopes to visit Cuba in 2016 but only if enough progress has been made in bilateral relations, he is able to meet with political dissidents, and if he can possibly "nudge the Cuban government in a new direction".

It was a year ago that Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro shocked the world by announcing the former adversaries would normalize relations. By July they had agreed to restore diplomatic ties after a 54-year break.