Havana ? Jimmy Carter on Tuesday called on Cuba to join the democratic nations of the Americas, respect human rights and allow Red Cross inspections of prisons.

In an unprecedented live television broadcast to the Cuban people, he also urged that the United States take the first step toward ending 43 years of hostility and lift the ban on travel and trade with the socialist regime.

Cuban opposition leaders give remarks after former President Jimmy Carter's address on Cuban television. Carter called for the United States to take the first step in restoring relations with the island nation. From left are Regis Iglesias, Adrian Leyva, Oswaldo Paya, Antonio Diaz and Pedro Pablo Alvarez.

“The time has come for us to change our relationship,” the former president said as Cuban leader Fidel Castro looked on from a front-row seat.

Carter gave his 30-minute speech in Spanish and then took questions from an audience of students and teachers at the University of Havana.

The “hard reality,” he said, is that since the Cuban revolution of 1959, neither country has managed to define “either a beneficial or positive relationship” with the other.

Some Cubans say the answer is to lift the 40-year-old trade ban, he said, while some Americans say Castro ought to remove himself from power and allow free elections.

“There are no easy answers,” said Carter, the first current or former president to visit Cuba in seven decades.

He added, “I haven’t come here to interfere in the internal matters of Cuba, but to extend a hand of friendship to the people of Cuba.”

Along those lines, he said, he would like to see a Cuba that is fully integrated into the Western Hemisphere. It ought to endorse free trade with all other nations in the Americas and should allow its own citizens to travel to and from the island freely, Carter said.

But the United States, as the more powerful nation, “should take the first step,” he said.

Congress should pass laws to permit free, unrestricted travel to the country, he said, and it should establish open trade with Cuba.

He told the audience that the world has changed greatly, especially in Latin America, where, when he became president in 1977, there were only two democracies in South Latin America.

“As late as 1977, when I became president, there were only two democracies in South America, and one in Central America. Today, almost every country in the Americas is a democracy.”

And Carter brought up the Varela Project, a petition drive never before mentioned in Cuba’s state-run media.

Human rights activists have been collecting signatures to try to force a referendum as allowed by the Cuban constitution to ask Cubans if they want greater freedoms, general elections and expanded free enterprise.

“When Cubans exercise this freedom to change laws peacefully by a direct vote, the world will see that Cubans, and not foreigners, decide the future of this country,” he said.

Finally, Carter asked that the communist government allow Red Cross and United Nations human rights officials to inspect the island’s prisons and examine social conditions.

Castro had no immediate reaction to the remarks. Upon Carter’s arrival Sunday, the Cuban leader had said that the former president could express himself freely, “whether or not we agree with part of what you say.”