Washington, July 31 (RHC) –- Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who reportedly is the favorite to be the Democratic candidate for the 2016 presidential elections, reiterated her wish to advance relations with Cuba, according to excerpts of an interview cited by Prensa Latina news agency.

Hillary Clinton defended the idea that the U.S. blockade of Cuba has been a failure, as she expressed in her book “Hard Choices,” published earlier this year.

She referred to the Cuba travel ban imposed on U.S. nationals by saying that she would like to see a final normalization of relations, unilaterally broken by Washington in 1961, as well as visits to Cuba by U.S. citizens.

The U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade has been imposed by 11 successive U.S. governments against Cuba over the past 5 decades, including the Obama administration. The measure has inflicted on Cuba damages calculated at over one trillion dollars.

The international community has repeatedly condemned the unilateral and extraterritorial U.S. policy against Cuba over the past 20 years, with the most recent vote by 188 states at the UN General Assembly.