Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived in China for an official visit to discuss trade and diplomatic relations, during which he will also propose an initiative to mediate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Lula has previously discussed plans to form a group of nations that would work toward mediating an end to the war and aims to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to get on board, with Brazil having a seat at the table.
Lula hopes to get China to convey the message to Russia, given the two countries’ close relationship. One European diplomat was cited by sources as saying that “people are waiting to see if it gets some traction from other countries, like France and Germany.”
“I am convinced that both Ukraine and Russia are waiting for someone else to say, ‘Let’s sit down and talk’,” Lula said earlier this month.
China has put forward a peace plan for the war, but it was roundly criticized by Ukraine and its allies as being too accommodating to Russia. China has refrained from calling Russia’s acts in Ukraine an invasion.
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Lula suggested last week that Ukraine cede the Crimean peninsula to Russia to begin peace negotiations, an idea the government in Kyiv rejected outright. Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Lula’s foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim visited Moscow in March to promote peace talks, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Brasilia on April 17, sources reported.
Earlier in October, Lula da Silva defeated Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian election. In a close vote, a previous left-wing leader of Brazil defeats the current ultra-conservative president.
After a fiercely contested race, challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva narrowly defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to win the election to become Brazil’s next president.
The country’s election commission reports that on Sunday, Lula won 50.8 percent of the vote versus Bolsonaro’s 49.2 percent.
Da Silva told the masses assembled at a hotel in Sao Paulo, “Today, the Brazilian people are the only winners. “Neither I nor the Workers’ Party or the parties that backed me in the election can claim credit for this victory. It represents the triumph of a democratic movement that rose above political parties, egotistical interests, and ideologies to advance democracy.”
