Brasilia — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva just reiterated, in a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that Brazil will continue to maintain commercial relations with Iran and will seek a peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear issue.
After meeting with Hillary Clinton at the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center, the provisional seat of federal government, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim reported that President Lula told the secretary that he will visit the Middle East, including Iran, next week.
Lula’s idea, according to Amorim, is, to talk with world leaders after the trip, in order to attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian issue.
According to Amorim, Hillary Clinton made no demand on Lula regarding Brazil’s relation with Iran, but offered her perspective on the use of nuclear energy by that country. Earlier, at the Foreign Ministry, Hillary Clinton said that Iran has not proven that it wants to negotiate an agreement on its nuclear program with the international community and that this will happen only after the imposition of sanctions on the country.
The foreign minister of Brazil played down the friction between Brazilians and Americans on the issue of Iran, saying that “adults can live with disagreement.” “Disagreement between adults becomes a dialogue,” he said.
According to the Brazilian foreign minister, the president told Hillary Clinton that it is necessary to maintain discussions on climate issues. Lula considers it necessary to make progress on the issues on which there was no consensus at the last United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, in order to try to achieve better results at the next conference in Mexico.
Celso Amorim also said that President Lula emphasized that it is important for US President Barack Obama to maintain dialogue with the Latin American countries.
The original article “Lula diz a Hillary Clinton que Brasil tentará uma solução negociada para a questão nuclear do Irã” was published by Agência Brasil on 3 March 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).
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