The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvahe insisted on the need for a “negotiated” peace between Russia and Ukraine, starting a visit to Portugal, which expressed its discrepancy with an initiative that can “boast the culprit”.
Lula, who seeks to bring Brazil back to the forefront of world diplomacy, has once again defended that position, in a balancing act that has already earned him criticism from the United States and misunderstandings in Europe.
“When my government condemns the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, it defends a negotiated political solution to the conflict,” the icon of the Latin American left declared in Lisbon, after meeting his Portuguese counterpart, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
“We urgently need a group of countries to sit down to negotiate with both Ukraine and Russia to seek peace,” Lula stressed.
“Portugal’s position is different“, quickly emphasized the president of this country, a member of the European Union (EU) and NATO and one of the first to supply combat vehicles to Kiev.
“President Lula believes that the path to a just and lasting peace involves prioritizing the negotiation path,” said Rebelo de Sousa.
But “the Portuguese position is different: it maintains that any path towards peace presupposes the priority right of Ukraine to react to the invasion, recovering what it can or wants to recover from its territorial integrity”, he said.
And this for “a matter of principle, which is not to the advantage of the offender”, he underlined.
mini ride
In his first trip to Europe since his return to power In January, Lula, who held the presidency from 2003 to 2010, opted for a four-day visit to the former colonial power from which Brazil gained independence in 1822. The second and final stop on this mini-tour will be Spain , starting Tuesday.
In his quest to improve his country’s image on environmental issues following the administration of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) and propose yourself as a possible peace mediatorLula traveled to the United States in February, where he met with President Joe Biden.
But he appeared to stumble, when after meeting this month with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, he urged the US to stop “fomenting war” in Ukraine, which has resisted a Russian invasion for more than a year , and called on the EU to “start talking about peace”.
He had previously argued that responsibility for the war sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is shared between the two countries.
The United States was quick to accuse Lula of “echoing Russian and Chinese propaganda, ignoring the facts.”
Lula received Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Brasilia on Monday, who “thanked” Brazil for its “contribution” in the search for a solution to the conflict and for “the excellent understanding of the genesis of this situation”.
trip to ukraine
Ukraine last week invited Lula to visit Kiev so that he “understands the real causes and essence” of the war.
Representatives of the Ukrainian community in Portugal met on Friday with members of the Brazilian delegation and Lula announced that thehe would send his main diplomatic advisor, Celso Amorim, to Kievfor a meeting with President Volodimir Zelensky.
“Brazil is determined to contribute to the promotion of dialogue and peace, and to put an end to this conflict”, Brasilia insisted in a statement.
At the Luso-Brazilian summit, the first in seven years, a dozen bilateral agreements will be signed, mainly in the fields of energy, science, education and tourism.
On Monday, after a meeting with businessmen near Porto (north), Lula will attend the presentation of the highest honor of Portuguese-language literature, the Camoes Award, to the famous Brazilian singer and author Chico Buarque.
This artist, known for his commitment to the left and against the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), was the winner in 2019, but Bolsonaro refused to sign the documents necessary for the official awarding of the prize.
Lula will deliver a speech in front of the Portuguese Parliament on Tuesday ahead of commemorations of the 49th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, which ended the European country’s 48 years of right-wing dictatorship and 13 years of colonial wars in Africa.
Source: AFP
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.