HAVANA, Cuba (AFP):  Cuba's ailing President Fidel Castro will eventually be fit enough to resume the presidency he handed over to his younger brother Raul in July, the communist state's parliamentary leader said Thursday.

Ricardo Alarcon, President of the Cuban Parliament. AFP PHOTO

"I am certain he will be in perfect condition to continue assuming this responsibility," Ricardo Alarcon told journalists when asked if the older Castro would seek re-election in 2008.

Alarcon, one of Fidel Castro's close aides, made the statement during a meeting held to prepare the March election of deputies who will then name the communist-run island's head of state.

Castro, 80, who led Cuba since its 1959 revolution, handed over power temporarily to his brother Raul, 75, on July 31 after undergoing intestinal surgery.

Cuban authorities have since released few details of the veteran revolutionary leader's exact condition, but insist he has been recovering steadily.

"I have been in contact with him a lot ... and the process of recovery continues going very well," Alarcon told journalists.

He stressed though it was necessary for Raul, Cuba's defense minister and longtime number two, to remain at the helm for the time being.

But Alarcon also insisted that did not mean Fidel Castro was out of the loop.

"Fidel has been and is very involved, very connected, very active in the important decisions that have been taken in the country," he said.

He acknowledged though that the longtime Cuban leader could not be as involved as in the past, "since he has to devote much of his time to his physical recovery."

Fidel Castro himself told his Venezuelan friend and ally Hugo Chavez he felt "very well," according to a transcript of the telephone conversation published by Cuba's official Granma daily on Wednesday.

Chavez also suggested Castro would soon be ready to resume his activities, and hinted at a meeting with Bolivia's leftist president Evo Morales in April.

The Venezuelan leader has visited Castro, and talked to him on the telephone on several occasions since July.

Video footage of a meeting the two held in January showed Castro looking healthier and more alert than he did the previous five times pictures of him were broadcast by Cuban state media, though he appeared to have difficulty talking.