US President Barack Obama told a forum of Latin American civil society members in Panama on Friday that the days of American meddling in the region were over.

"The days in which our agenda in this hemisphere so often presumed that the United States could meddle with impunity -- those days are passed," Obama said hours before the start of the 35-nation Summit of the Americas, where he is coming face-to-face with Cuban leader Raul Castro amid their diplomatic thaw.