Lisbon (BLAZETRENDS).- The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, affirmed today that he is working to restore peace between Russia and Ukraine with the search for a group of countries that facilitate the negotiations, because “it is better to find a way out in a table than trying to find a way out on the battlefield.”
“Brazil wants to find a way to restore peace between Russia and Ukraine,” Lula said at a press conference after meeting with Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
“Russia does not want to stop, Ukraine does not want to stop, we are going to have to find a group of countries that can build a relationship of trust,” he added.
“The idea is to stop the war, sit down to negotiate and talk,” insisted the Brazilian leader.
“Stop while there is time,” he demanded. “The war should not have started. Russia should not have invaded, but it did. Now, instead of choosing one side, I want to choose a third way, the reconstruction of peace.”
Lula recalled that Brazil condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations and assured that it had never “matched” Moscow and kyiv, but reiterated that his country wants to stay out of the war.
For this reason, he said, he refused to sell missiles to Ukraine, because “Brazil does not want to participate in the war, it wants to build peace.”
Brazil and Portugal, conflicting views on the war
“I understand the role of Europe,” but “I want the role of Brazil to be understood as well,” Lula settled in the presence of Rebelo de Sousa, who took the opportunity to explain that Portugal’s is a very different position.
“It is not only the condemnation of Russia”, affirmed the Portuguese president.
“Portugal is in solidarity with NATO and the EU and thinks that it is not a fair situation not to allow Ukraine to defend itself and try to recover territory that was invaded with the violation of its territorial integrity,” he added.
“For Portugal, an ally of the EU and NATO, the line is different, for Brazil, it is the one defined by Lula,” Rebelo concluded. “It is up to the authority of each country to develop what they consider to be their priorities.”
Brazil’s position on Ukraine is one of the issues that has fueled the political controversy over Lula’s visit to Portugal in recent days.
The president of Brazil, who arrived in Lisbon on Friday, will meet today with the prime minister, the socialist António Costa, before participating in the XIII Luso-Brazilian Summit, the first in seven years.
Lula kicked off the day with official ceremonies and a meeting with the Portuguese president, the conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, at the Belem Palace, where dozens of supporters of the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) were waiting to express their support.
In the afternoon, a bilateral summit will make it possible to sign more than a dozen agreements and consolidate the turn in relations between the two countries after the distancing between Lisbon and Brasilia during the Jair Bolsonaro period.
