Lula wants NATO, EU and US working for peace in Ukraine

In an interview with Portugal’s radio and television agency (RTP), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that it is fundamental for countries to work on a peace plan that manages to bring Russian and Ukrainian leaders to the negotiating table, with the support the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). The president sought to clarify the Brazilian position regarding the war in Ukraine, stating that Brazil has no ambiguous position. “I don’t know who interprets it that way. Brazil has a clear position: it condemns Russia for invading Ukraine’s territorial space, period”. He added that what the country doesn’t want “is to align itself with the war, Brazil wants to ally itself with a group of countries that work to build peace.” “If everyone is directly involved in the war, the question I ask is the following: who is going to talk about peace? Who is going to talk to the governments that are at war to discuss peace? this step?” questioned Lula, reaffirming the importance of forming a group of countries that works to put an end to the conflict. “It is necessary to build a narrative that convinces Putin and Zelensky that war is not the best way to solve problems. NATO, the United States and the European Union must “start talking about peace and discussing the issue”. The theme of war and recent statements by the president provoked controversy in the days before Lula’s visit to Portugal. Lula said that people have a right to their opinion in a democracy and that he is limiting himself to visiting a sister country with whom he Brazil has privileged relations. “In Portugal, there is also a certain polarization with a more extreme right-wing side with the other parties, but I have no problem, I did not come here to enter into controversy with the Portuguese Parliament. I came to fulfill an agenda and people are not obliged to like Lula, they are not obliged to like the president of Brazil”. nine years and six months (later 12 years and one month) for the crimes of passive corruption and money laundering in the criminal action involving a triplex in Guarujá, in São Paulo. He said that it was a time of preparation for his return to political life “I was the victim of the most serious lie ever told in Brazilian politics, an attempt to remove me from the election [presidencial], managed to get me out of the election”, lamented the president. referring to the corruption process that determined his detention for a period of 17 months, adding that during this period he took the opportunity to exercise patience, conscience. “To prepare myself because I was very sure that I was going to be President of the Republic again, and I had that desire because it was necessary to fix Brazil”. “The Brazil that we had built in three and a half PT mandates, with the greatest social inclusion in history, everything this has been dismantled. So, I had to rebuild that and I’m doing it”, said Lula. Parliamentary majority The president admitted the absence of a parliamentary majority, but highlighted the importance of the “art of talking” and the ability to extract from this dialogue what is best for the for the Brazilian people. For him, the opposite of this ability to negotiate “is an anti-democratic barbarity” in which one is moving towards “a fascist and authoritarian thinking” typical of the deniers of politics. “We cannot deny politics” because “politics is the It is the art of exercising democracy and it is important to be able to negotiate with those who think the opposite”. who likes music, who likes football, who likes to be cheerful, who likes to be polite and who lost that because of a fascist president who governed the country for four years”. Fight against hunger According to the president, his great project policy is based on a simple idea, although difficult to implement: that all Brazilians can eat three meals a day. When questioned about how he intends to end hunger in Brazil, with 33 million people currently in this situation, he said that the issue is to solve the problem of money – which is poorly distributed in the budget. “Taking care of the poor is an investment, raising the minimum wage is an investment”. On the danger of increasing the debt, Lula recalled his past, in which he proved he was capable of doing things without creating problems. “We have responsibility and we will put it into practice”, he assured. *With information from RTP – Rádio e Televisão de Portugal.

Agência Brasil