HAVANA (Reuters):

Fidel Castro is not terminally ill and will make a public appearance shortly, but is unlikely to return to governing Cuba on a day-to-day basis, Cuban government officials told a visiting delegation of members of the U.S. Congress recently.

"The party line is that Fidel is coming back. He does not have cancer," Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, told reporters on Sunday.

But Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat and one of the leaders of the delegation, told The New York Times that he had concluded after discussions with officials that the 80-year-old Cuban leader, who has undergone intestinal surgery, would not return to running his country on a day-to-day basis.

"The Cubans were empathetic, and I believe them, that Fidel does not have cancer and that the illness he does have is not terminal," Delahunt told the Times after returning to Washington.

Castro, who has not been seen in public since July 26, was planning to make a public appearance shortly, and if he did resume a political role, it would probably be setting broad policy, Delahunt told the newspaper.

Alive and recovering

"The functioning of the government, that transition has already occurred," it quoted him as saying.

If Castro reappears, "This will not be Fidel sitting at his desk," Delahunt told the Times. "This will be, Fidel Castro is alive and recovering."

Castro did not appear at celebrations of his 80th birthday this month, prompting rumours that he had died or was near death.

The 10-member U.S. congressional delegation was the largest to go to Cuba since Castro's 1959 revolution.

The three-day visit was aimed at improving ties between Havana and Washington. But the delegation's efforts to launch a new dialogue with Cuba on the assumption that Castro was out of the picture, were rebuffed by officials who insisted he was recovering.