Well, this is interesting, now isn’t it?

Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro said on Thursday his country could talk to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, in Havana’s latest overture to the incoming Democratic administration in Washington.His remarks followed comments from his brother, President Raul Castro, who told a U.S. magazine he could meet Obama in a “neutral place” to try to end the Communist-run island’s four-decade conflict with the United States.

“With Obama, talks could happen anywhere he wants,” Fidel Castro, America’s longtime Cold War enemy, wrote in the latest of a series of columns he has published in state-run media since falling ill in 2006.

“Anywhere”? Sounds like we are getting very close to a situation where there might be a meeting without preconditions. And this would be the media’s cue to ask the President-elect whether he is willing to take the Castros up on said meeting.

Recall, of course, that during the fight for the Democratic Party nomination, the President-elect stated that he would be willing to meet people like Fidel and Raul Castro without preconditions. Sounds like they are trying to meet him halfway. I presume then that the President-elect is enthusiastic about following up on this offer and seeing whether he can take advantage of it.

That is, of course, if the President-elect was serious about taking the time to meet with dictators like the Castros sans preconditions. We will see whether he really is soon enough. But I stress that the media should keep after the President-elect and see whether he really intends to follow through on what he promised.