President Obama, facing criticism at home for appearing too cozy with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, defended his overtures on Sunday, saying the handshakes and polite conversation the two leaders shared here were hardly “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”

Mr. Obama, wrapping up a four-day swing through Latin America that included a summit meeting of Western Hemisphere leaders here, said he believed he had paved the way for “frank dialogue” with countries like Venezuela and Cuba, countries whose relations with the United States are, respectively, strained and practically nonexistent.

But, speaking at a news conference here, the president also sought to calibrate his message more finely, aware that his gestures to those nations may not sit well back at home. He said he has “great differences” with Mr. Chávez and insisted that freedom for the Cuban people would remain the guiding principle of his foreign policy.

“That’s our lodestone, our North Star,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Obama came to this lush and mountainous Caribbean island with the aim of forging new relationships in a region that felt ignored by his predecessor, and on that score he clearly succeeded. He tamped down tensions over Cuba by declaring he sought “a new beginning” there. By the summit meeting’s end, Mr. Chávez said he was ready to send an ambassador to the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/americas/20prexy.html?_r=1&ref=global-home&pagewanted=print