NPSGlobal Foundation, 24 Nov 2009.

Lula da Silva welcomed his Iranian peer, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, yesterday in the midst of criticism from the Brazilian population and the international community. Amongst the agenda topics there are economic cooperation topics and support to the Iranian nuclear plan, to which Lula said to be while it maintains its peaceful characteristics.

“We recognize Iran's right to develop a peaceful nuclear program in compliance with international accords", said the Brazilian president.

The truth is the “peaceful” characteristics of the plan have been questioned because of the country’s transgressions to the IAEA’s safeguards regime and ever since the discovery of the secret enrichment facility at Qom.

The polemic started by the visit make us think of the benefits Brazil perceives by receiving Ahmadinejad, which is probably the most controversial head of state of the latest period not only because of his declarations against the United States, Israel and the denial of the Holocaust but also because of the lack of transparency and scandal during the elections and reports over human rights violations.

There’s been a lot of talk about the possibilities and consequences of Ahmadinejad’s visit to Brazil, but we should not forget that Brazil is just the beginning of his tour over Latin America, which includes layovers in Bolivia and Venezuela. Ahmadinejad’s advent implies the arrival of Iran’s influence in the region under the premise of economic cooperation, but it is very important to consider if that is a relation worthy of keeping or if it produces a genuine regional benefit. In Brazil’s case, its leadership and trajectory in the promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear energy and international cooperation on international control of nuclear materials (with the leading example of ABACC, the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for control and accountancy of nuclear materials) are overshadowed because of its support to a nuclear plan with doubtful ends.

Back