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Former US President Jimmy Carter (L) is welcomed by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez plane upon landing at Havana's international airport on March 28, 2011. (Adalberto Roque/Getty Images)
"We are here to visit the Cubans, the heads of government and private citizens. It is a great pleasure for us to return to Havana," Carter said in Spanish during a visit to a senior center, accompanied by his wife, Rosalynn Carter, according to The Associated Press.
"I hope we can contribute to better relations between the two countries."
Carter, who arrived in Havana on Monday for a private three-day visit, met with President Raul Castro and other officials on Tuesday to discuss economic policies and ways to improve U.S.-Cuba relations.
The 86-year-old ex-president said that he had talked to Cuban officials about Alan Gross, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison on March 12 for providing some Cubans with Internet equipments to communicate better with themselves and the outside world.
The conviction of Gross has strained relationship between the two countries.
“But I am not here to take him out of the country,” he said.
Carter made his first visit to the island in 2002, when it was still ruled by Fidel Castro, before Fidel handed power over to his younger brother, Raul Castro.
Carter, winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, is the only American president, sitting or otherwise, to have visited Cuba since the 1959 revolution, which propelled Fidel Castro to power.
