São Paulo – In an official two-day visit to Beirut that started this Monday (14th), Brazil’s minister of Foreign Relations, Mauro Vieira, will discuss the expansion of diplomatic and trade relations with Lebanon, as well as the humanitarian situation of the near 1.2 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees currently living in the country. Vieira arrived in Lebanon this Monday after visiting Iran and attended a tribute to Navy officers.
Vieira awarded the Ordem do Rio Branco badge to the corvette Barroso. The ship rescued 220 refugees adrift in the Mediterranean Sea on September 4th after a request made by Italy’s navy. The Barroso corvette arrived in Lebanon in the beginning of the month to replace the União corvette as the lead ship of the Maritime Task Force of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (FTM-Unifil), which is headed by Brasil since 2011.
Jaques Wagner, minister of Defense, was going to attend the ceremony but didn’t travel to Lebanon because he is taking part in ministerial meetings in Brasília, according to information from the Ministry of Defense. He was represented by the Navy’s commander, admiral Eduardo Bacellar Leal Ferreira.
According to information released by the Ministry of Foreign Relations (Itamaraty), in the next few days, minister Vieira has meetings scheduled with Lebanon’s prime-minister Tammam Salam, with the National Assembly’s president, Nabih Berri, and with the minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Gebran Bassil.
In these meetings, Vieira will discuss the expansion of diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries and also the regional situation of the Middle East and Lebanon. Among the challenges that the country is facing is the housing of approximately 1.2 million refugees from Syrian and Palestine. Before the foreign minister’s trip to Lebanon, the director of the Middle East Department in Itamaraty, Lígia Maria Scherer, said that the minister would go to the Arab country with the goal to express solidarity and support to Lebanon in its challenge of receiving and welcoming Syrian refugees.
“It’s a bilateral visit to express once again the importance of Lebanon as a priority to Brazil”, she said. “The bilateral, trade and cultural matters will also be addressed. But it’s only natural that the issue of the Middle East, of Lebanon’s surroundings is very much in the forefront”, said the diplomat.
She cited, on the occasion, that Lebanon and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a customs union formed by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, signed, last year, a memorandum of understanding to negotiate free trade. A negotiation meeting for free trade already took place and another should be held soon.
Still according to data presented by Scherer, bilateral trade between Brazil and Lebanon increased 156% between 2005 and 2014: from US$ 130 million in 2005 to US$ 332 million last year. This relationship brings a surplus of around US$ 300 million to Brazil, which exports, especially, meats and coffee. In turn, Lebanon exports mainly phosphate to Brazil.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
