The move, announced late Monday, marked the first time that Fidel Castro, 79, has not held the reins of power in the one-party communist state since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
One of the world's longest-serving leaders had the operation to treat intestinal bleeding blamed on stress from overwork and travel during the past two weeks, the government statement issued from Havana said. It emphasized that the delegation of power was a temporary step to allow the communist leader to recover.
'The operation obligates me to take several weeks of rest,' said a letter written by Fidel Castro and read on state television by his personal secretary, Carlos Valenciaga.
Fidel Castro put primary blame on his condition on his trip 10 days ago to Argentina for a summit of the South American trading bloc Mercosur as well as his subsequent participation in the 53rd-anniversary celebrations of his attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, which marked the beginning of the revolution.
The president said his condition was brought on by 'days and nights of continuous work,' during which he was 'barely able to sleep.'
The health of Castro, whose 80th birthday is August 13, has been the subject of frequent speculation in recent years, and state television reported that after hearing the news, Cubans rushed home late Monday to watch developments on TV.
The report of Castro ceding power also provoked immediate celebrations on the street in the Little Havana district of Miami, Florida, centre of the US-based Cuban exile community. Television footage from Miami showed cheering people waving Cuban flags and honking car horns.
In his letter, Fidel Castro also proposed that his birthday celebrations by postponed until December 2, the 50th anniversary of the landing of the Granma yacht, which carried Fidel Castro back to Cuba from exile in Mexico and marked the beginning of his two-year guerilla war.
First Vice President Raul Castro, 75, is to temporarily take over his brother's duties as president and first secretary of the Communist Party.
Raul Castro himself also holds the office of second secretary of the party and heads Cuba's military and security forces. He has been his brother's chosen successor for decades and, according to the Cuban Constitution, is first in the line of presidential succession.
Not much is known about Raul Castro, but he clearly lacks the magnetism of his sibling. A widely cited quote from him - curious for a country's defence minister - is 'Beans are more important than canons.'
He was at his brother's side, along with Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, throughout the Cuban revolution, and Fidel Castro - shortly after a widely publicized fainting spell in 2001 that drove speculation about his health - reiterated that Raul Castro would be his successor.
'Continuity is guaranteed, and the person with the most experience after me is my brother Raul,' he said at the time.
On Monday, Fidel Castro said in his statement that provisional power was going to his brother 'because our country is threatened in these circumstances by the government of the United States,' Cuba's decades-long ideological sparring partner.
'I ask the party's Central Committee and the National Assembly of the People's Power for the firmest support for this proclamation,' Fidel Castro said in his letter. 'I have not the slightest doubt that our people and our Revolution will fight to the last drop of blood to defend this and other ideas and measures that may be necessary to safeguard this historic process.'
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