The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, refused this Friday (06/28/2024) to apologize to his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as he had claimed, and instead described him as a “left-hander” with “an inflamed ego.”
“We must put ourselves above these trifles because the interests of Argentines and Brazilians are more important than the inflamed ego of some lefty,” declared Milei when consulted by the television channel. LN+ regarding Lula’s request.
The Brazilian president had said publicly that he would not speak to Milei until he apologized. “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 portal. UOL. The leftist president did not specify which statements he was referring to, although Milei had previously referred to him as “corrupt.”
“What are the problems? I called him corrupt? Wasn’t he imprisoned for being corrupt? I called him a communist? Isn’t he a communist? Since when do we have to ask for forgiveness for telling the truth? Or are we so sick of political correctness that we can’t say anything to the left even if it’s true?” Milei asked on Friday when asked about the matter.
Both presidents greeted each other cordially when they met in Italy during the G7 summit, but they did not meet. Lula had declared that Argentina “is a very important country for Brazil, and Brazil is very important for Argentina” and that “it is not a president of the Republic who is going to create discord between Brazil and Argentina.”
Lula did not attend Milei’s inauguration in 2023, to which his political adversary, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), who is close to the Argentine president, was invited.
Milei and Lula will meet again in Asunción at the beginning of July 2024 during the summit of Mercosura trade bloc of which they are major partners along with Paraguay and Uruguay. A source from the Paraguayan Foreign Ministry confirmed to the agency AFP the attendance of both leaders at the meeting on July 8.
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Memory at risk in Argentina
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