PORT-OF-SPAIN – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said on Saturday during the Summit of the Americas that the countries of the Caracas-led ALBA bloc will simply abstain from signing the final declaration rather than trying to amend the text.

In a brief statement to the press at the end of the meeting of leaders of the 12-member Union of South American Nations, or Unasur, with U.S. President Barack Obama, Chávez adopted a very conciliatory tone toward the American, whom he described as an “intelligent man” and said he wants him to be “his friend.”

He said that Venezuela and its ALBA allies – Honduras, Dominica, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba, which is excluded from the summit – will not attempt to modify the final declaration “since I don’t believe there is time to change it,” but said they will not sign that document.

Venezuela’s leftist president said that “we can’t imagine another Summit of the Americas without Cuba,” and said that he detects a “good chance” of new relations between Havana and Washington.

With regard to a possible rapprochement between Venezuela and the United States – in conflict throughout the Bush administration – Chávez said that “I have no doubt” they will come closer together, adding that “I think we’ve taken some good steps towards that.”

For most of the past eight years, Washington has denounced Chávez as a would-be dictator and a destabilizing force in Latin America, while the Venezuelan leader has missed few opportunities to denounce U.S. “imperialism.”

Despite the persistent bad blood, Venezuela remains a key oil supplier for the United States.

The Venezuelan president said that shortly before Saturday’s meeting began, he gave his U.S. colleague Eduardo Galeano’s book “The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” with the dedication “Para Obama, con afecto” (For Obama, with affection).

“He made the gesture (Friday) to come forward and greet me, so I said to myself, I’m going to respond with a similar gesture, so I went over and gave him the book,” Chávez said later.

He gave no further explanation “because he is such an intelligent man that he’ll understand what I meant,” he said.

“I thought it was one of Chávez’ books. I was going to give him one of mine,” Obama subsequently told reporters, alluding to his own literary efforts, “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.”

“We talked about some very important subjects, I took note of some ideas, there were some comments, all with optimism and the best will in the world to make progress,” Chávez said.

Though he stressed that there are differences between Venezuela and the United States “because we are socialists,” he said his country will study the designation of a new Venezuelan ambassador to Washington and that “soon we will begin to have meetings.”

Venezuela and the United States suspended diplomatic relations in September 2008 with the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador to Caracas, Patrick Duddy, in “solidarity” with a similar action taken by Bolivian President Evo Morales.

The U.S. government in turn expelled then-Venezuelan ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez.

U.S. diplomats characterized Obama’s 75-minute encounter with the Unasur leaders as “a frank exchange” that was dominated by the South Americans’ pleas for Washington to normalize relations with communist Cuba.

According to the sources, Obama repeated the position that he had expressed in his inaugural address: that the United States seeks a “new beginning” in its relations with Cuba but that change will not occur overnight. He is willing, he said, to maintain a dialogue but not “talk for the sake of talking.”

On the eve of the summit in Port of Spain, Obama eliminated restrictions on Cuban Americans’ travel and remittances to the communist-ruled island, but he remains reluctant to discuss ending Washington’s 47-year-old economic embargo against Cuba without some tangible moves from Havana in the realm of human rights.