Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva intends to create a “peace club” with China to resolve the military conflict in Ukraine. On this subject writing Financial Times (FT).
The Brazilian leader intends to make such an offer during his next visit to China, which will take place on March 26, the newspaper reports. During the trip, Lula de Silva is to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The creation of a “peace club” is expected to allow the President of Brazil to restore his country’s diplomatic influence in the world after the former head of state, Jair Bolsonaro, be headed toward relative isolation in the foreign policy arena.
“We are very interested in promoting or helping to organize any meeting that would lead to a peace process. (Luis de Silva) said that he hears a lot about war, but little (hears) about peace. He is interested in the peace talks,” Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira told the newspaper.
Lula de Silva has previously said he would promote the idea of creating a group of countries that would try to sit down at the negotiating table with Ukraine and Russia to reach a peace agreement. However, Ryan Berg, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is skeptical of such plans.
“The problem is that Brazil is not in a position to influence the outcome of this war, and many do not see it as a neutral arbiter (due to) its membership in the BRICS (an organization that also includes Russia )”, says the analyst. .
The FT notes that Lula de Silva’s desire to engage in a diplomatic settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is not the first attempt on his part to enter into the resolution of difficult international problems.
In particular, as president in 2010, he, together with then Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit agreements on the country’s nuclear program. However, this pact was criticized by the United States and other Western countries, and was later quickly violated by Tehran.
After the start of the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Brazil adopted a neutral position. Lula de Silva too excluded arms deliveries to either side of the conflict, although he called Moscow’s decision to start hostilities on Ukrainian territory a “big mistake”.
In February, China proposed a “peace plan” to resolve the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In this document, China, in particular, proposes to respect the sovereignty of other states, to abandon Cold War-era thinking and the creation of military blocs, as well as to end hostilities and start the negotiation process. Furthermore, Beijing noted that unilateral sanctions and economic pressure cannot solve the emerging crisis. The Russian Foreign Ministry has positively assessed the PRC’s proposals for resolving the military conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy , in turn, said he did not view China’s proposal as a peace plan, but positively assessed when Beijing began discussing the military conflict in Ukraine. The American official was skeptical of China’s proposals: in particular, President Joe Biden believes that this plan only benefits Russia.
