Brazil’s president urges world to engage, not isolate, Iran

Holds 1st meeting with Ahmadinejad

November 24, 2009|Associated Press

BRASILIA - The world must engage, not isolate, Iran in the push for Middle East peace and Iranian leaders should negotiate with Western nations for a “just and balanced’’ solution to concerns over its nuclear program, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil said yesterday.

Silva’s comments followed a three-hour private meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the first Iranian leader to visit Brazil since Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the late shah and US ally, toured Brazil in 1965.

But Ahmadinejad made no promises and defiantly said Iran would try to improve its uranium-enrichment technology if it cannot buy enriched uranium abroad. “If the people ask us to produce ourselves, we should do it and the opportunity we tried to create for the other side will be lost,’’ Ahmadinejad told reporters.

The two leaders did not say whether they discussed the Iranian war games that started a day earlier, driving oil prices higher.

Ahmadinejad’s comments on uranium enrichment came less than a week after Iran indicated it would not export its enriched uranium for further processing, effectively rejecting the latest plan brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a deal aimed at delaying Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon.

While Silva said on his weekly radio show that there is good reason not to isolate Iran, he also suggested - but did not insist - that Ahmadinejad could work harder to negotiate the stalemate over the nation’s nuclear program.