Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu during a meeting in Brasília with Brazilian Tourism Minister Carlos Brito last Monday| Photo: Roberto Castro/MTur
While Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu was received by his Brazilian counterpart Carlos França in Itamaraty last Monday in April, the Turkish ambassador in Montevideo was summoned to explain the passage of his two days earlier through Uruguay. Çavuşoğlu embarked on a tour that included Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela. Çavuşoğlu left a trail of indignation during his official visit to Uruguay.
When confronted with protesters who were performing an act of remembrance and rejection of the Armenian Genocide committed by the then TurkishOttoman Empire at the beginning of the last century, Minister Çavuşoğlu made a gesture with a big smile on his face, which was interpreted as one of the hallmarks of the ultranationalist group Gray Wolves, justifying the massacre of the Armenians among the various atrocities.
President Luis Lacalle Pou did not like that. He not only called the Turk’s behavior regrettable, but also sent a message to Ankara, which is fighting to sign a free trade agreement with the Uruguayans. “Advancing trade issues with any country in the world does not mean sharing internal or external policies,” said Lacalle Pou, showing that little Uruguay is a giant in defending democratic values.
Çavuşoğlu’s heinous behavior caused no embarrassment in Brazil. Aside from not overshadowing the brilliance of the visit, it didn’t stop the Turk from winning an audience with President Jair Bolsonaro as a bonus. A prestige not always accorded to other chancellors traveling through Brazil.
Çavuşoğlu’s disgusting behavior would not even be necessary for the affair with Turkey to be classified as part of the recent anomalies in the Itamaraty. Turkey has long taken the path of autocracies, working for the benefit of many others. Maduro’s Venezuela, for example, has one of its main bases for money laundering with the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Much of the gold smuggled in by the regime goes through Turkey.
In an interval of two months, Brazil started having a company of very strange people. He fell in love with Russia on the issue of invading Ukraine and veiled the relationship by abstaining after abstaining in votes contrary to Moscow’s interests.
As if that wasn’t enough, Brazil acted in late February in favor of Iran’s terrorist actions in Yemen. He abstained in a UN Security Council vote imposing an arms embargo on the Houthis in Yemen. The radical Shia group that, with the support of Iran and Hezbollah, has started a civil war in Yemen where it is trying to overthrow the Sunnileaning government.
The sanctions were imposed after it was discovered that Iranbacked Houthi terrorists had carried out multiple drone and missile attacks on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in a bid to escalate conflict in the region.
Brazil’s position of “neutrality” prompted the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Israel to speak to the Brazilian government to try to understand the reasons why Brazil scaled the wall in this vote. They knocked on the President’s door as if he were in charge of the skids.
Few paid any attention, but ten days before Brazil spoke out in support of the Iranian ayatollahs in the Security Council, Brazil sent thenminister Tereza Cristina to Iran to negotiate an increase in fertilizer supplies. The same pretext that Brazil threw into Putin’s lap.
Brazil’s “fertilizer diplomacy” has led the country to walk a very fine line between diplomacy and simply defending foreign interests. Nothing is more evident in this regard than Brazil’s efforts to counter the “sanctions” imposed by the United States on Iran and Russia. The Brazilian news is full of complaints about her. Minister France himself says he is trying to overthrow her.
But there are no sanctions whatsoever for Russian and Iranian fertilizers. It is inexplicable that the chief diplomat keeps saying what he says and makes the president repeat it.
It is obvious that although the sanctions do not reach fertilizers, they cause difficulties by hitting banks and transport companies and disrupting operations. However, payments between Brazil and Iran have never been an unavoidable problem. Trade balance data are available to prove the strength of Brazil’s ties with Iran.
After decades of sanctions, the Iranians have built an immense infrastructure that allows them to sidestep difficulties. In the case of Brazil, the regime maintains a network of companies registered in the names of Iranian and Brazilian citizens but owned by the theocratic state, which are responsible for receiving foreign trade deals.
When Minister France calls the US Secretary of State and asks the Americans to relieve the Iranians, he does not work to facilitate fertilizer operations. It joins, albeit unknowingly, in the ayatollahs’ chorus for the end of sanctions. A kind of lobby that bears the seal of the Brazilian government.
The result of unblocking lending operations or shipping lines, which the Iranians are blatantly using to fuel their secret nuclear program or to fund terror under the guise of securing the fertilizer market, is unreasonable and actually quite odd. Mistakes leading Brazil to position itself on a hairraising axis.