Washington, June 9 (Mercopress-RHC) -- While secretary of state, Hillary Clinton urged President Barack Obama to ease the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba, according to excerpts from her memoir due out next week.

The economic measure “wasn't achieving its goals and it was holding back our broader agenda across Latin America,” Clinton says in her new book “Hard Choices.” The past, and possibly future presidential hopeful, said she reached that conclusion late in her 2009-2013 tenure as secretary of state.

Hillary Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, is seen as the early favorite for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, though she has yet to say whether she plans to run.

CubaNow, a group that favors improved ties between Washington and Havana, welcomed Clinton's comments. “This is a game-changing development because it shows that there is serious acknowledgement at the highest levels of our government that hard-line Cuba policies have failed,” the organization's executive director, Ric Herrero, said in a statement.

Washington imposed the economic blockade on Cuba in February 1962.