2023-05-22 15:51:00
RIO DE JANEIRO.– The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvaassured this Monday that he organized a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir Zelenskyduring the G7 summit in Japan, but that he didn’t show up.
“Very simple. We had a bilateral (meeting) with Ukraine at 1515 (local time). We waited and received the information that they were late. Meanwhile I met with the President of Vietnam. And when the president of Vietnam left, Ukraine did not appear. Surely he had another appointment, ”said the Brazilian during a press conference.
Zelensky has met with several world leaders – including the G7 leaders of South Korea, Indonesia and India – during his visit to Hiroshima, where he participated in person at the G7 summit held this weekend.
According to government sources consulted by Folha de S. Paulo, the meeting would have changed the time three times at the request of the Ukrainian delegation –with its consequent last-minute changes in Lula’s agenda–, but in the end no one showed up for the meeting with the president of Brazil, who according to the newspaper, he would have been waiting in the hotel conference room with the Ukrainian and Brazilian flags ready for the meeting.
Zelensky himself, asked at a press conference if he was disappointed at not having met his Brazilian counterpart, considered that Lula would indeed be disappointed. Even so, he did not give too many details regarding the failed meeting and affirmed that “everyone” has their “own hours”Therefore, the meeting might not have taken place.
For his part, Lula has stated that he would still like to have a conversation with the Ukrainian president, adding that he is not “disappointed” but “upset”.
“But well, Zelensky is of legal age, he knows what he is doing”sentenced the Brazilian president.
Even so, Lula assured that what happened does not affect its intention to be a mediating country in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, although he has questioned the intention of both Moscow and kyiv to seek peace: “I maintain my position. I am trying with other countries, with India, with China, with Indonesia, to build a block to try a peace policy in the world”.
“I feel that neither (Russian President Vladimir) Putin nor Zelensky are talking regarding peace right now. It seems to me that they both believe that someone is going to win and they don’t need to talk regarding peace. It is not possible to build a proposal at war. We want the attacks to stop first and then find a negotiated solution. This is how we will find peace,” added Lula on Twitter.
In recent months Lula has given a series of missteps in his role as mediator. For example, the recent visit of the Russian foreign minister to Brasilia and his statements on his tour of China, in which he declared that the United States was also responsible for the war, caused deep discomfort in the Western powers and in Ukraine. Furthermore, Zelensky categorically rejected Brazil’s peace plan, which called for both kyiv and Moscow to make concessions.
“The only plan capable of stopping the Russian aggressive war is the Ukrainian peace formula,” Zelensky emphasized.
Likewise, the Brazilian president sought to downplay the matter and said that he did not go to the summit in Japan “to discuss the war in Ukraine”.
“Discussions regarding the war should take place in the UN”, specifically in the Security Council, although he has also considered that it needs reform.
“The UN no longer has the authority to maintain peace in the world because it is the members of the Security Council who make war”he denounced, a thesis that he already proposed during his initial speech at the summit.
“If the UN Security Council had the strength to negotiate, we might not have the war between Ukraine and Russia. We need a serious institution, with weight and strength to make decisions. And this, on the climate issue, is also essential,” she wrote on Twitter.
ANSA and DPA Agencies
THE NATION
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