Fidel Castro has stepped down after ruling Cuba for 49 years

President Castro announced on Tuesday that he will not accept another term as president, ending the communist revolutionary's 49 years in power.

Cuba's National Assembly meets on Sunday to select a new president.

Fidel's brother Raul is tipped to be chosen to replace him.

Fidel Castro was one of the defining figures of the Cold War.

He was then - and still is - loathed by the United States but revered by his allies, some of them in the Caribbean.

Caribbean comrade?

St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has described Mr Castro as one of the towering political figures of the 20th century.

He said Mr Castro helped Cuba move forward in a number of areas.

	Dr Ralph Gonsalves (right) sees no major changes in Cuba after Castro

“Cuba has made tremendous progress in the fields of agriculture, education and health…living standards. In the United Nations Human Development Index it is ranked in the top 50.”

Dr Gonsalves does not expect any ‘upheavals’ in Cuba post-Castro.

Similar views are expressed by noted Caribbean journalist Rickey Singh.

He told BBC Caribbean that he doesn't think there will be any significant changes to governance in Cuba after Castro.

Listen to BBC Caribbean's interview with Rickey Singh

The Grenada Prime Minister, Dr Keith Mitchell, said he was not surprised at Mr Castro's decision to step down.

He said it was a “logical decision” and he was convinced that Mr Castro “would put the Cuban people first."

The governments of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago have also paid tribute to the Cuban leader, citing their longstanding individual country relations and ties with the wider Caricom.

The Patrick Manning government in Port of Spain said it did not believe that Mr Castro's stepping down would affect the existing relations between Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba.

In Jamaica, both the Bruce Golding government and the opposition, led by ex-prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller, have commented on Mr Castro's decision to step down.

During a meeting of the Jamaica parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Bruce Golding referred to "the period of the great ideological divide" during the Cold War period, between his Jamaica Labour Party and communist Cuba.

He said they were "fierce opponents of the political values as were espoused then".

"But," Mr Golding added, "Jamaica and Cuba had come to enjoy "a relationship that is mutually respectful."

US and EU reactions

The US President, George W Bush, said news of Mr Castro's retirement should herald a transition to democracy for Cuba.

"The [US] will help the people of Cuba realise the blessings of liberty," Mr Bush, whose country has blockaded Cuba since 1962, told reporters in Rwanda.

I will be one more weapon in the arsenal that you can count on   Fidel Castro

The European Union said it hoped to relaunch ties with Cuba that were almost completely frozen under Mr Castro.

Mr Castro has ruled Cuba since leading a communist revolution in 1959.

Mr Castro made his announcement, in a letter published on the website of the Cuban Communist Party's newspaper Granma, in the middle of the night, Cuban time.

He said he would not accept another five-year term as president, when the National Assembly meets on Sunday.

"It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion, that I am not in a physical condition to offer," he wrote.

Mr Castro said he had not stepped down, after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in 2006, because he had had a duty to the Cuban people to prepare them for his absence.

Soldiering on

But retirement, he added, would not stop him from carrying "on fighting like a soldier of ideas", and he promised to continue writing essays, entitled Reflections of Comrade Fidel.

"I will be one more weapon in the arsenal that you can count on," he said.

The National Assembly is widely expected to elect Raul Castro, 76, as Fidel's successor.

He has mooted major economic reforms and "structural changes".

But some analysts see a possible generational jump, with Vice-President Carlos Lage Davila, 56, a leading contender.