Fidel Castro, who has dominated Cuba for nearly 50 years, said last night he was in good spirits and stable after undergoing surgery and temporarily relinquishing power to his brother.
"I can say it is a stable condition, but a real evolution of the state of my health needs time," President Castro (79), said in a statement read out on state television. He did not appear on the screen.
"I am in perfectly good spirits," he said. "The most I can say is that the situation will remain stable during many days before a verdict can be given."
Cuban President Fidel Castro listens to a speaker during the last May Day parade on Havana's Revolution Square
The ailing president handed over the presidency temporarily to his younger brother Raul after having an operation to stop gastrointestinal bleeding.
The leader's long-estranged sister said this evening she had heard he was no longer in intensive care after his surgery, a Miami television station reported.
Juanita Castro Ruz, who left Cuba in 1964 and has not spoken to her brother for years, told WTVJ television that it had been difficult watching Cuban exiles in Florida celebrate news that Fidel Castro had undergone surgery for stomach bleeding and handed over power temporarily to his brother.
"It's a very sad situation for me because we are separated. I am separated from Fidel because of political reasons," she said, according to the television station's Web site. "The last information that I received is that he's out of intensive therapy and he's now waiting to see what happens. But already he's left from intensive therapy," she added.
The announcement that Mr Castro was ill set off street parties in Miami among Cuban exiles who yearn for the demise of the West's only communist government.
It also prompted speculation that Mr Castro, who took power in 1959, would not return to office.
In Washington, the Bush administration, which has tightened the decades-long US embargo with Cuba, dismissed any possibility of a softer stance toward the provisional new leader Raul Castro.
Mr Castro, who had claimed he delegated power because Cuba was under threat from the United States, said the Cuban armed forces were prepared to defend the nation.