Former Cuban President Fidel Castro says his remarks about the failure of the Cuban economic model have been "misinterpreted" by the media, Press TV reported.
A journalist from The Atlantic magazine quoted Castro as saying in a recent interview that Cuba's economic model "doesn't even work for us any more."
Speaking at an event to unveil the second volume of his autobiography on Friday, the 84-year-old Cuban revolutionary icon said that he meant "exactly the opposite" of how the statement was reported.
"Now I'm amused to see how [the Atlantic reporter] interpreted it literally" while an expert on the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was also present during the interview.
Castro, however, did not elaborate further on his equivocal phrase, but insisted that it was the capitalist system that was failing.
"My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system no longer works neither for the United States or the rest of the world; it leads to one crisis after another, ever worsening, global in scope... and inescapable," he was quoted as saying by AFP.
"How could such a system work for a socialist country like Cuba?" he added.
Castro, the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution and an outspoken critic of ten US presidents, stepped down in February 2008 after ruling the communist island for nearly five decades.