HAVANA (AP) - Cuban President Raul Castro says he will not seek another five year term after the one he's starting today ends.
He has tapped 52-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel as his top deputy, ready to assume the presidency without any disruption.
Castro says the country has reached a "transcendent" moment in which it is ready to start transferring responsibility and power to a younger generation.
Diaz-Canel's appointment marks the first time someone who did not directly participate in the 1959 Cuban revolution assumed such an important role.
Castro spoke this evening before parliament.