Raul Castro said he is stepping down as Cuban Communist Party leader, leaving the island without a Castro guiding affairs for the first time in more than six decades and handing control of the party to a younger generation. The 89-year-old Castro made the announcement in a speech on Friday at the opening of the eighth congress of the ruling party, the only one allowed on the island.

“I concluded my task as first secretary... with the satisfaction of having fulfilled [my duty] and confidence in the future of the fatherland,” he said in a typically terse finale that contrasted with the impassioned verbal pyrotechnics of his brother Fidel, who died in 2016. Castro didn’t say who he would endorse as successor. But he previously hinted he favours yielding control to Miguel Díaz-Canel, who succeeded him as president.