Castro (top), Obama

Washington, May 28: Barack Obama’s foreign policy credentials took a further blow yesterday after his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination won the backing of Fidel Castro.

The former Cuban President gave a qualified endorsement to Obama whom he described as “the most-advanced candidate” in the race for the White House.

The unwelcome support of the ailing revolutionary icon is likely to give Senator John McCain further opportunity to question Obama’s foreign policy credentials.

The Republican nominee has consistently tried to exploit the support offered for Obama by Hamas, which is listed by the US state department as a terrorist organisation.

But writing in his regular column in the state-run Granma newspaper, Castro noted that Obama had not dared to call for a reversal of the decades-old US embargo on Cuba.

“Obama’s speech can be translated as a formula for hunger for the country,” the 81-year-old former President wrote, referring to remarks Obama made to the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami last week.

The Illinois senator said he would maintain nearly all trade sanctions against Cuba as leverage to push for democratic change, but also vowed to ease restrictions on US-based exiles travelling to Cuba and sending money to relatives.

However he repeated that he was willing to meet Raul Castro, who in February succeeded his elder brother to become the nation’s first new leader in 49 years.

His chief strategist meanwhile forecast that Obama would cross the finishing line in his marathon with Hillary Clinton for the Democrats’ nomination next week, when South Dakota and Montana are the final states to vote.

David Axelrod told the New York Daily News: “We’re very close now. When the primaries end, I think, we’ll be where we need to be.... We’ll be at the number we need to claim the nomination.” By the campaign’s calculations, Obama only needs a further 49 delegates to achieve the simply majority of 2,026 needed to win.

However, the party’s rules committee meets on Saturday and will raise the victory threshold if it agreed to include some or all of the delegates from Michigan and Florida, who have so far been discounted as a penalty for the states’ decision to hold early primaries.

Auschwitz gaffe

Obama admitted yesterday he was wrong to say his uncle helped liberate the Nazis’ Auschwitz concentration camp after the Republicans said Soviet troops freed the camp.

Obama’s campaign said he meant to say that his great-uncle, Charlie Payne, had helped liberate a part of the Buchenwald camp, not Auschwitz.

“He mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically,” said Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton.

Obama had made the Auschwitz reference in a Memorial Day speech on Monday.