Lula’s Foreign Policy Advisor Meets with Putin and Lavrov in Moscow

April 4, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Speaking with Brazil’s establishment daily Folha de São Paulo, President Lula da Silva’s chief foreign policy adviser, Celso Amorim reported that he had traveled “discreetly” to Moscow last week, on Lula’s instructions, to meet with President Vladimir Putin, to discuss the possibility of peace negotiations to end the Ukraine war. The six-day trip, which began March 28, also included a stop in Paris, basically to include a “Western link,” and to meet with President Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy adviser Emmanuel Bonne.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS that Amorim was focused on the Ukrainian situation, but that Putin had also raised issues pertaining to bilateral relations and extended an invitation to Lula to visit Moscow. Amorim told Folha he was surprised by Putin’s warm reception and that they had spoken for an hour, during which Putin told Amorim how much he appreciated Brazil’s peace overtures, together with China’s.

Commenting to CNN later about the meeting, Amorim said that the doors to peace “are not completely open, but nor are they completely closed.” A former foreign minister, Amorim also reported that he had met with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and that Lavrov will be visiting Brazil on April 17, by which time Lula will have returned from China. Lavrov and Amorim are old friends, dating back to when they were both stationed at the UN, and then as foreign ministers.

Amorim told Folha that he thought it “would take time” for peace negotiations to take hold, before one side or the other in the Ukrainian conflict realized that the cost of war is greater than any concessions they might make in a peace negotiation. He also said that there are no immediate plans for Lula to go to Kiev, although President Zelensky has invited him.