2023-04-18 01:07:13
world
Brazil, like other Latin American countries, has condemned the invasion but refuses to impose sanctions on Russia and to send weapons to kyiv.
17/4/2023
The White House harshly criticized Brazil on Monday after the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva affirmed during a trip to China that the United States “incentivizes war” in Ukraine.
“In this case, Brazil is parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without looking at the facts at all,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, without mentioning Lula.
Russia and China often blame the West for the war that broke out in February 2022 after Russian troops stormed Ukrainian territory.
Brazil, like other Latin American countries, condemned the invasion, but refuses to impose sanctions on Russia and to send weapons to Western-backed kyiv and above all by the government of US President Joe Biden, with whom Lula met at the White House in February.
This Monday, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, “thanked” Brazil’s efforts “for contributing to a solution to the conflict.”
He said it the day after Lula proposed a joint mediation with China and the United Arab Emirates to say “enough is enough” to the war in Ukraine.
Kirby calls Lula’s message on the war “deeply problematic.”
Washington has “no objection to any country wanting to try to end the war,” he said. But Brazil approached this issue “rhetorically by suggesting that the United States and Europe are somehow not interested in peace or that we share responsibility for war,” she insisted.
“Obviously, we want the war to end,” Kirby insisted. “That could happen right now, today, if Mr. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would stop attacking Ukraine and withdraw his troops.”
“Brazil’s latest comments that Ukraine should consider the formal cession of Crimea as a peace concession are simply wrong.especially for a country like Brazil, which has voted in favor of defending the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity” at the United Nations, Kirby added.
The US State Department has been much more lukewarm. “Brazil is a sovereign country that makes its own decisions about its relations with other countries,” said a spokesman who requested anonymity.
“We remain focused on implementing our shared democratic principles, creating prosperity and working towards economic development that is beneficial, sustainable and inclusive in the long term,” he added.
Lula did not limit himself to Ukraine in his criticism of Washington, but also attacked the dominance of the dollar in world trade and advocated a new currency for transactions between the Brics member countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). ).
“Everyone knows that I made the proposal for a kind of G20 for peace. When the economic crisis occurred in 2008, we quickly created the G20 to try to save the economy, ”Lula said when leaving his hotel.
“Now it is important to create another type of G20 to end this war and establish peace. This is my intention and I believe that we will achieve great success”, he declared.
Lula stated that he discussed this initiative with US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of some South American countries.
His tour comes after he was received by Biden at the White House in February.
In Beijing, Lula announced that Brazil was “back” on the international sceneafter four years of relative withdrawal under the mandate of his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
But before leaving China, he was confident that the strengthening of relations between Brasilia and Beijing, its main trading partner, will not cause any “scratches” with the United States.
*With information from AFP.
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