Xinhua 2023:01:21.11:56
BRASILIA, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will address his regional leaders at the VII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to be held in Buenos Aires on Tuesday, January 24 Colleagues say that South and Latin American integration is state policy for Brazil.
At a press conference this Friday at the Itamaraty Palace, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry Secretary for the Americas, Michel Arslanian, stressed that Lula’s trip to the Argentine capital, just three weeks after his inauguration, underlines that Brazil is “coming back to the world”. .
Lula’s participation in the event marks Brazil’s return to CELAC, officially announced this week after the country has been removed from this regional forum since 2019 by decision of former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
According to Arslanian, CELAC is an important space for collaboration and coordination and a fundamental space for dialogue “to develop solutions for coexistence”.
“For Brazil, the state policy is to build South American and Latin American integration,” he stressed.
In Buenos Aires, on the 23rd, the Brazilian President will hold a bilateral meeting with his Argentine counterpart, Alberto Fernández, and on the 25th, after the summit, he will travel to Montevideo for an official visit, during which he will be received by the Federal Council Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou.
It is “very meaningful” that the tour begins with a bilateral event in Argentina, Arslanian said, adding it is about “using the fact that there is a very positive energy to reinvigorate the relationship that to mobilize actors to work on a set of problems”.
He stressed the “contrast to the previous period, the resumption of rapprochement with the region and with Mercosur (a trading bloc made up of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay).”
Among the issues he will discuss with Fernández are the restoration of various mechanisms and bilateral technical entities related to investment, financial and energy integration, the fight against organized crime, and nuclear and defense cooperation.
The visit, the official said, was “clearly political,” although an Antarctic Cooperation Agreement would also be signed between the two countries and there would be sectoral agreements between ministries, with the aim of “reinvigorating” relations with the neighboring country.
The Declaration of Buenos Aires will be signed during the VII CELAC Summit, which will contain, among other things, a space agenda for Latin America, the peaceful development of the oceans, equal rights for women, nuclear disarmament and the fight against the illegal arms trade
(Web Editor: 吴思萱, Zhao Jian)