(MADRID) - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Tuesday he has received an invitation to visit Cuba from President Raul Castro, but has not yet decided whether to accept.

The statement contradicted information just hours earlier from Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who said the prime minister had agreed to visit the communist island next year.

"There is that proposal. It is a plan that's there. Now we will see at the right time if it will happen and how it will happen," Zapatero told a press conference when asked to confirm if he had accepted the invitation.

Moratinos said visiting Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque brought the invitation to Zapatero to visit Cuba sometime "next year".

"We have accepted the invitation in principle, and the timing and circumstances will be decided through diplomatic channels," Moratinos told a joint news conference with Perez Roque earlier Tuesday.

Zapatero would be the first Spanish head of government to visit the island since 1999, when conservative prime minister Jose Maria Aznar was there for an Ibero-American summit.

The only official visit was by Socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez in 1986.

Since it first came to power in 2004, Zapatero's Socialist government has promoted a policy of constructive engagement towards Cuba, which is at odds with Washington's strategy of isolating the communist regime.

Moratinos made a ground-breaking visit to Cuba in April 2007, the first by an EU foreign minister since the bloc imposed sanctions on the island in 2003 after a crackdown by Fidel Castro in which 75 dissidents were arrested.

On Thursday, the European Union is to hold its first ministerial talks with Cuba since then. The initiative follows the EU's lifting of sanctions against Cuba last June.

Moratinos also announced Tuesday that Madrid will give Havana 24.5 million euros (33.4 million dollars) to help with reconstruction of the island following hurricanes Ike and Gustav.

Cuban authorities have estimated that last month's hurricanes caused five billion dollars in damage. Seven people were reported killed in the storms, which damaged a half million homes and destroyed 63,000 residences.

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