In his speech, Castro said he will continue to ask the General Assembly to adopt a resolution that calls for an end to the USA embargo on Cuba.

While US President Barack Obama and Castro initiated the re-establishment of diplomatic relations earlier this year, the economic and financial embargo of Cuba continues, which only the US Congress can lift. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff also argued that jettisoning the embargo would complete the process of “putting an end to a dispute derived from the Cold War”.

It will be their second meeting, after a first historic encounter in Panama in April.

Castro took over Cuba’s presidency from his brother Fidel, who stepped down in 2008 after decades in power.

Heitkamp was one of two senators and a handful of representatives to meet Friday in New York with Castro, the first Cuban leader to visit the United States in 15 years.

This non-stop, round-trip service starting December 1, 2015 will be offered every Tuesday in coordination with Cuba Travel Services, a leading provider of carrier services – a unit licensed by the US government for arranging travel services to the island.

“Venezuela will always be able to rely on the solidarity and support of Cuba”, Castro declared.

He also used his address to the United Nations General Assembly to criticize the “militarization of cyberspace and the covert and illegal use of information and communications technologies to attack other states”.

He said those countries waste “national and human resources to an irrational and unsustainable consumerism”.

The Cuban embargo has been a particular sore spot for the United States in the General Assembly, which has voted annually with near unanimity to condemn it 23 times.

He’d made the same argument on Saturday before at a United Nations development summit where he called the embargo the “main obstacle” to Cuba’s development and noted that it was “rejected by 188 United Nations member states”.

Cuba estimates the embargo has caused $121 billion in damage to its economy.