HAVANA — Cuban President Raul Castro says he will not seek another five-year term after the one he's starting Sunday ends.

He has tapped 52-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel as his top deputy, ready to assume the presidency without any disruption.

Castro says the country has reached a "transcendent" moment in which it is ready to start transferring responsibility and power to a younger generation.

Diaz-Canel's appointments marks the first time someone who did not directly participate in the 1959 Cuban revolution assumed such an important role.

Castro spoke Sunday evening before parliament.