The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stated this Wednesday that He will not speak with his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei until he apologizes to him and Brazil for the “nonsense” he said.
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“I have not spoken with the president of Argentina because I think he should apologize to Brazil and me. He said a lot of nonsense, I just want him to apologize,” Lula said in an interview with the UOL portal.
He (Javier Milei) said a lot of nonsense, I just want him to apologize
Lula did not specify which statements he was referring to, but Milei called the Brazilian “corrupt” and “communist” during the electoral campaign that brought him to power in December of last year.
The leftist president also pointed out that the Argentine ultra-liberal “will not be the one who sows tares” between the two neighboring countries, members of the Mercosur bloc and important trading partners.
Javier Milei
Photo:EFE
In a later statement in Buenos Aires, Argentine presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said that What Lula “intends is within his wishes, we respect them, but in this case the president has not committed anything that he has to regret, at least for now.”
The spokesperson confirmed that Milei plans to attend the semiannual Mercosur summit in Asunción on July 8. Lula da Silva has already confirmed her attendance at the meeting of the group made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia.
The tensions between Milei and Lula
Milei is close to former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), whom he invited to his inauguration a day after his electoral victory.
Although there were attempts at rapprochement with Lula’s government, The Brazilian president did not attend the ceremony in Buenos Aires.
The two heads of state also kept their distance at the G7 summit in Italy this month. “They greeted each other cordially as two presidents of two nations should do,” the spokesman said.
Although the press speculated about a possible meeting between Milei and Lula in Bari, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said that “there was no request” for a bilateral meeting.
During the Italian meeting the two leaders greeted each other “cordially,” Adorni said.
In March, Lula said that The extreme right threatens democracy in the world, and gave the case of its Argentine counterpart as an example.
G7 Summit organized by Italy, in Savelletri.
Photo:AFP
“Who is today against the system, which criticizes everything? Milei in Argentina,” he launched.
Despite the tensions between the two rulers, both countries are talking about the presence in Argentina of dozens of fugitives from the attack on the three powers in 2023 in Brasilia by Bolsonaro followers.
Lula pointed out that Some of these fugitives have already been “sentenced” in Brazil, so their government is asking that if they do not return they “be arrested” in Argentina.
“We are treating it in the most diplomatic way possible,” he said.
Brazilian police have arrested hundreds of suspected vandals, financiers and instigators of the assaults that occurred in January 2023, a week after Lula’s inauguration.
Some have received convictions for crimes such as coup d’état, with sentences of up to 17 years in prison.
