São Paulo – Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should participate in a forum organized by television channel Al Jazeera this weekend, in Doha, Qatar. The theme of the meeting is "The Arab world in transition: Has the future arrived?".
Lula should address those present alongside the minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, according to information disclosed on the event site. The strengthening of relations with the Middle East and Africa was one of the priorities in the foreign policy of the former president.
According to a spokesperson for Lula, on Sunday morning, the former president is going to speak about the democratic transition in Brazil and about the other aspects of democracy in the country and on the American continent.
In the seminars, to take place from Saturday to Monday, the topics to be discussed should include political changes in the Arab world, the part played by media in political transformation and the challenges of news coverage in zones of conflict.
Other themes to be discussed should be the operations of youths in protests around the Arab world, the use of social networks, the Palestinian question and the North American policy for the Middle East, among others. Political and social leaders, journalists and scholars should participate.
During his term in office, Lula sought insertion of Brazil in the mediation of conflicts in the region, especially in peace talks between the Israeli and Palestinians and in the signing, alongside Turkey, of an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, an effort that did not stunt new sanctions imposed on Iran by the United Nations (UN) Security Council.
The former president visited several countries in the Middle East and North Africa during his two terms in office, some more than once. Apart from the diplomatic offensive, the government also made an effort for promotion of technical and trade cooperation.
Responsible for the foreign policy of Lula’s government, the former Foreign Minister of Brazil, Celso Amorim, participated last week in a similar event, also organized by Al Jazeera, in Doha.
According to an article published on the news channels site in English, Amorim said that the experience of Brazil in the transition from the military dictatorship, which went from 1964 to 1985, to democracy may be useful to other countries, including the Arab nations that are living changes in their regimes.
"Who would have thought an intellectual, a metal worker and a kind of revolutionary would follow a military dictatorship?", he said, according to the television channel’s site, referring, respectively, to former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Lula and to the current president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.
*Translated by Mark Ament
