S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad said today (1st) that Brazil may operate as a mediator in the peace process in the Middle East. \u201c[Brazil has] relations with Israel and good relations with Syria and they have good credibility. We trust them. So they have to play that role to instigate the peace process,\u201d he said in an exclusive interview to ANBA after a meeting with the board at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/b>, in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n
The matter was discussed yesterday (30th) by the president of Syria and his Brazilian colleague, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, in Bras\u00edlia. After the meeting, president Lula\u2019s special advisor for international affairs, Marco Aur\u00e9lio Garcia, said that the prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, may visit Brazil in August and that this will be \u201ca good occasion to develop this dialogue\u201d.<\/p>\n
Apart from the Palestinian question, which opposes Arabs and Israelis, Syria has a private dispute with Israel involving the Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied during the Six Day War, in 1967, and under Israeli control to date.<\/p>\n
Assad said today that he believes that Brazil should make an effort in the sense of relaunching the peace process, currently paralysed, and recommended joint operation with Turkey, as was the case in negotiations regarding the Iranian nuclear program.<\/p>\n
The Syrian president also spoke about the possibility of Syria negotiating a free trade agreement with the Mercosur. Read the interview below:<\/p>\n
ANBA \u2013 In your address yesterday, you mentioned that in the meeting with president Lula, you spoke about studying the negotiation of a free trade agreement between the Mercosur and Syria. What proposals did you make to president Lula regarding the matter?<\/b><\/p>\n
Bashar Al Assad<\/b> – We started speaking exclusively about the summits [South America-Arab Countries], which have, shall we say, an arm. What is our economic arm? Your arm is the Mercosur, that is the organisation, we need to institutionalize this relation rather than only talking about politics and statements. This is the situation. The Mercosur should have proposals for every other country \u2013 or maybe for the Arab world. That depends on their vision \u2013 in order to have certain kinds of agreements. Let\u2019s talk about free trade agreements. Instead of my signing a free trade agreement with Brazil, I\u2019ll sign with the Mercosur. This is better for me and stronger for Brazil and for any other South American country that is in Mercosur. This is one of the proposals that I mentioned yesterday to president Lula.<\/p>\n
Yesterday you and president Lula spoke about the role Brazil can play in the peace process in the Middle East. What else can Brazil do to contribute?<\/b><\/p>\n
They can play the role of mediator. They have relations with Israel and good relations with Syria and they have good credibility. We trust them. So they have to play that role to instigate the peace process, because now it is paralysed. You need to prepare the environment for the negotiation, you cannot just say: \u2018We have to start negotiations\u2019. Brazil (maybe in cooperation with Turkey, which is an important player in that region \u2013 at the end you need someone who is close geographically, because sometimes you need daily contact -) can forge a vision with the Turkish and in cooperation with Syria about how to relaunch the peace process. We talked about it yesterday and I think they [Brazilian leaders] are going to make an effort in that regard.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Mark Ament<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In an interview to ANBA, Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad said the government of Brazil may \u2018instigate\u2019 peace in the Middle East and that he believes an effort in this direction will be made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1454,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-foreign-affairs"},"wps_subtitle":"In an interview to ANBA, Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad said the government of Brazil may \u2018instigate\u2019 peace in the Middle East and that he believes an effort in this direction will be made.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}