The Foreign Minister of Brazil, Mauro Vieira, met this Friday (02/06) with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Serguei Lavrov, in South Africa. According to Lavrov’s team, the topic discussed was Brazilian efforts to promote peace in Ukraine.
During the meeting, which took place in parallel to the conference of ministers from the BRICS countries (a group formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in Cape Town, “special attention was paid to Brazil’s efforts to find ways to to resolve the situation in Ukraine,” said Russian diplomacy.
+ Lula: Brazil wants to remain neutral on war between Russia and Ukraine
Lavrov and Vieira discussed, according to Moscow, in a “traditionally friendly and constructive atmosphere”, current issues related to the development of relations between Russia and Brazil, especially with regard to their political, economic and commercial components.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has vehemently defended the need to end hostilities between Russia and Ukraine and has proposed the creation of a group of countries to act as a mediator between the two sides. On the other hand, the PT has been accused by several western countries of trying to put “the aggressor and the attacked” on the same level.
Lula spoke with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and with the Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky, but has not yet met personally with any of them. At the recent G7 summit in Japan, Zelenski did not attend the planned meeting with Lula.
In April, Lavrov was in Brazil and met with Mauro Viera and Lula.
Appeal to rich countries
On the sidelines of the conference, the Brics ministers stated that “the attention and resources” of rich countries are currently devoted to conflicts, to the detriment of eradicating global poverty.
“The attention and resources of our richest partners have been diverted and the agendas of our multilateral organizations no longer respond to the needs and demands of the global south,” said Naledi Pandor, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa, the country that occupies the rotating BRICS presidency.
“We cannot allow conflict in one part of the world to replace the goal of eradicating global poverty as the greatest global challenge, so we need to look at how we can bring the world’s attention and resources back to this troubling fact,” said Pandor, in a thinly-veiled reference to the war in Ukraine.
“The suffering of the poor is forgotten”, lamented the South African minister, stressing that “eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable condition for sustainable development”.
Pandor also denounced that “developed countries have not fulfilled their commitments to the developing world and are systematically trying to shift responsibility to the global south”.
“Friends of the Brics”
In addition to Pandor, Vieira and Lavrov, the meeting will be attended by the ministers of Foreign Affairs of India, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs of China, Ma Zhaoxu.
Another 15 foreign ministers from Africa and the global south, “friends of the Brics”, were invited to participate in this Friday’s meeting, according to Pandor’s portfolio. Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Gabon and Kazakhstan sent representatives to Cape Town, while Egypt, Argentina, Bangladesh, Guinea-Bissau and Indonesia participated virtually.
The South African and her counterparts confirmed that the bloc is studying formulas to open its doors to new members, although they recognize that there is still work to be done to activate this expansion.
The ministers should also discuss the summit of heads of state and government of the BRICS that will take place in Johannesburg from August 22nd to 24th, already marked by doubts about the presence of Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as he is the target of an issued arrest warrant. by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
le (EFE, ots)
#Brazilian #Foreign #Minister #meets #Lavrov #discuss #war #Ukraine