Ahmadinejad and Lula: Brazil President Lula often seeks to be a
bridge between cultures
- this time the American and Persian.
O Globo, Brazil
Lula Presses Obama to
Speak to Ahmadinejad
"What I think is so serious is
that so far, President Obama hasn't spoken with Iran. … Obama must speak with President
Ahmadinejad eye-to-eye, and say he's going to take such and such action."
-- Brazil President President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
SÃO PAULO and CAIRO: President
LuizInácio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday, that he considers the U.S. decision
to impose sanctions on Iran before a dialogue between the two countries to be a
grave one. For Lula, what's missing is an “eye to eye” conversation between the
American president, Barack Obama and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to
him, the lack of talks between the two parties may lead to a climate of
animosity similar to the period before the Iraq War. But Lula qualified his words
by saying that Ahmadinejad would have to assume the consequences of
manufacturing nuclear weapons.
“What I think is so serious
is that so far, President Obama hasn't spoken with Iran. And up to now, neither
has any [U.N.] Security Council member president. Obama
must speak with the president eye-to-eye and say he's going to take such and
such action,” said Lula, who again defended Brazil’s commercial ties with
Tehran. “I go there very comfortably, especially because Brazil is Iran's
largest trading partner [in Latin America],” he added.
President
Obama greets Brazil President LuizInácio Lula
da Silva at the White
House: Lula seeks to leverage his
In the meeting he will hold
with Chinese President HuJintao
on Friday, Lula will say that isolating Iran at this moment could be like
shooting oneself in the foot and would be unjust - if Ahmadinejad is telling the
truth and his nuclear policy is really for peaceful purposes. Lula has as
a trump card the fact that Obama has not been able to eliminate resistance from
China, who has veto rights on the Security Council, on the new sanctions. The
president will also emphasize that the White House argument that Israel could lose its
patience and attack the Persian nation in unfounded. He says Israel wouldn't
attack without American consent.
According to people close to
the Brazilian president, Lula doesn’t intend to "beg" for an alliance
with China on the issue of Iran. Particularly because, this senior official
said, the Brazilian government doesn't support Iran, but defend the right of
every country to have its own program.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
“President Ahmadinejad tells his
domestic audience that he will not produce an atomic bomb. Iran is the most
monitored country in the world,” said our source from the government’s
diplomatic sector.
Lula will "look into the
eyes” of Ahmadinejad during his visit to Tehran next month, and he'll ask for concrete
assurances that his nuclear policy is for peaceful purposes, said the high
authority. The Brazilian government knows that the whole world will be awaiting
the outcome of the meeting. At that point, Lula will make his decision about whether
to support a possible new round of sanctions on Tehran.
