São Paulo – Brazil’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira participated on Tuesday (12)’s evening in the Ramadan’s Iftar dinner held by the ambassadors of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Brasília. The minister spoke of the trade and institutional ties between Brazil and these countries and the alarming levels of food insecurity in Gaza this Ramadan.
Iftar is the fast-breaking evening meal of Muslims in Ramadan, the Islam’s sacred month, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk and usually have collective, celebrative meals with family and friends when the sun is down. Ramadan started last Monday (11).
Mauro Vieira spoke about the holy month, the Muslim faith, and the values of Islam, which, he says, are shared by the other monotheistic religions. Mentioning data from the Federation of Muslim Associations in Brasil (Fambras), the minister said that some 800,000 to 1.5 million Muslims live in Brazil, and this population consists of 1.8 billion worldwide.
“This Ramadan, many Palestinians, including women and children, in the Gaza Strip, won’t have nothing to eat or celebrate. Regardless of our faith, the humanitarian scourge in Gaza urges us to reflect on the nefarious consequences of war, like the loss of innocent lives, the deprivation of families, the multiplication of orphan children. In short, it urges us to reflect on the agony and the misery ushered in by human actions,” he said.
Vieira also said that Brazil looks optmistically on its relations with hosts Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman. He mentioned the advancements in bilateral relations with these countries, with visits from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the UAE twice, and to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. “In all these travels, as well as the meetings he had with officials in the region, it was easy to notice the satisfaction with the new directions of the Brazilian foreign policy and with Brazil’s return to its traditional standings regarding the Middle East.”
The Iftar dinner in Brasília was attended by diplomats, representatives from the Brazilian government and guests, including the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) International Relations Vice President Mohamad Mourad and Fambras Halal president Mohamed Zoghbi.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
