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Retirement and final years: 2008–2016

Following his retirement, Castro's health deteriorated; international press speculated that he had diverticulitis, but Cuba's government refused to corroborate this. He continued to interact with the Cuban people, published an opinion column titled "Reflections" in Granma, used a Twitter account, and gave occasional public lectures. In January 2009 Castro asked Cubans not to worry about his lack of recent news columns and failing health, and not to be disturbed by his future death. He continued meeting foreign leaders and dignitaries, and that month photographs were released of Castro's meeting with Argentine president Cristina Fernández.

In July 2010, he made his first public appearance since falling ill, greeting science center workers and giving a television interview to Mesa Redonda in which he discussed US tensions with Iran and North Korea. On 7 August 2010, Castro gave his first speech to the National Assembly in four years, urging the US not to take military actions against those nations and warning of a nuclear holocaust. When asked whether Castro may be re-entering government, culture minister Abel Prieto told the BBC, "I think that he has always been in Cuba's political life but he is not in the government... He has been very careful about that. His big battle is international affairs."

On 19 April 2011, Castro resigned from the Communist Party central committee, thus stepping down as First Secretary. Raúl was selected as his successor. Now without any official role in the country's government, he took on the role of an elder statesman. In March 2011, Castro condemned the NATO-led military intervention in Libya. In March 2012, Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba for three days, during which time he briefly met with Castro despite the Pope's vocal opposition to Cuba's government. Later that year it was revealed that along with Hugo Chávez, Castro had played a significant behind-the-scenes role in orchestrating peace talks between the Colombian government and the far left FARC guerrilla movement to end the conflict which had raged since 1964. During the North Korea crisis of 2013, he urged both the North Korean and US governments to show restraint. Calling the situation "incredible and absurd", he maintained that war would not benefit either side, and that it represented "one of the gravest risks of nuclear war" since the Cuban missile crisis.

In December 2014, Castro was awarded the Chinese Confucius Peace Prize for seeking peaceful solutions to his nation's conflict with the US and for his post-retirement efforts to prevent nuclear war. In January 2015, he publicly commented on the " Cuban Thaw ", an increased normalization between Cuba-US relations, by stating that while it was a positive move for establishing peace in the region, he mistrusted the US government. He did not meet with US president Barack Obama on the latter's visit to Cuba in March 2016, although sent him a letter stating that Cuba "has no need of gifts from the empire". That April, he gave his most extensive public appearance in many years when addressing the Communist Party. Highlighting that he was soon to turn 90 years old, he noted that he would die in the near future but urged those assembled to retain their communist ideals. In September 2016, Castro was visited at his Havana home by the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, and later that month was visited by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. In late October 2016, Castro met with the Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who became one of the last foreign leaders to meet him.