HAVANA (AP) -- Heads of state visiting Cuba for the Ibero-American
                  summit in November should focus on meetings with colleagues rather than
                  with "counterrevolutionary" groups, a government spokesman said Thursday.

                  "This is an event that really affects our peoples," Foreign Ministry
                  spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said. The leaders should "come to the event
                  for that purpose," he said.

                  However, Gonzalez did not specifically say if the presidents would be barred
                  from meeting with the opposition. He spoke in response to questions during
                  his customary weekly news conference.

                  Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez said last month that he
                  would attend the summit only if the communist government allows him to
                  meet freely with opposition and human rights activists.

                  In a letter to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Rodriguez said he wanted "to visit
                  informally -- without restrictions and with full access to local and
                  international media who so desire -- with representatives and leaders of
                  human rights, political and religious organizations."

                  The contents of the letter, dated Sept. 9, were released by the president's
                  office in San Jose. It was never made clear whether Castro had responded.

                  "We do not recognize the existence of these 'dissident' groups," said Cuban
                  spokesman Gonzalez. "But there are people who undertake
                  counterrevolutionary acts."

                  Argentina and Chile already have said they will not attend the ninth
                  Ibero-American Summit -- a meeting between Spanish, Portuguese and
                  Latin American leaders on Nov. 15 and 16_ to protest the arrest of former
                  Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on a Spanish extradition request.

                  Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman, who has long-standing ties to the
                  Cuban exile community in Miami, has said he would skip the summit to
                  protest Cuban policies.

                  The opposition leader in Costa Rica's congress, Daniel Gallardo of the
                  social-democratic National Liberation Party, urged Rodriguez to reject
                  Castro's invitation to the summit in order to "not pander to the last dictator of
                  this century."