Miami ? The United States is lying when it charges Cuba is deliberately trying to sabotage antiterrorist efforts and is involved in the production of bioweapons, President Fidel Castro tells ABC’s Barbara Walters in an interview to be broadcast tonight.

Castro also says the Cuban missile crisis was the result of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s lies not Castro’s willingness to participate.

And he says organizers of an unprecedented petition drive for democratic reforms on the island will receive a response from the Cuban government “in due course.”

Those are among the highlights of the Walters interview with Castro, which will air at 9 p.m. today on ABC’s “20/20.” ABC is on Sunflower Broadband Channels 9 and 12.

It is being aired as Cuba marks the 40th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis with a conference in Havana that includes key members of former President John F. Kennedy’s administration.

Walters asks Castro what new information has been gained from the release of classified information on the Cuban missile crisis, which erupted in mid-October 1962 when Kennedy learned there were Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba.

“We would not have accepted the missiles if they had said it was related to the balance of power,” Castro said, adding that Khrushchev “misled Kennedy” and also “lied to Cuba.”