"It's time for China to get involved in the peace process in Ukraine," says Lula.
"This is one of the issues I want to discuss with President Xi Jinping," the president added after meeting with Olaf Scholz.
BRASILIA (Reuters) – President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated on Monday that Brazil will not provide war munitions to Ukraine, as requested by the German government, and urged countries like China to act to reach a peace agreement.
"Brazil has no interest in supplying ammunition for use in the war between Ukraine and Russia. Brazil is a country of peace; we do not want any participation, even indirect," said Lula in a press conference alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is on an official visit to Brazil.
Instead of more ammunition, Lula said, the world needs to form a group of countries to help resolve the crisis caused by the war. The president urged China, which today has close ties with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to "get involved" and help resolve the conflict.
Lula proposed the creation of a group to try to negotiate peace in the region, in the same way that the G20 was created to try to find solutions to the 2008 economic crisis, and stated that Brazil could make its contribution.
"I'm going to talk to other presidents, I'm going to talk to (Joe) Biden, about the idea of creating a group of people, a multilateral institution. There needs to be someone at the negotiating table, and I think our Chinese friends have a very important role to play in that," he said. "If I go to China in March, that's one of the issues I want to discuss with President Xi Jinping. It's time for China to get involved and try to help find peace between Russia and Ukraine."
Asked if he maintained his previous position that the mistakes of the two presidents, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, were equivalent, Lula stated that he still believed that "it takes two to tango," but acknowledged that at the time of the statement he was unaware of the details of the conflict.
"I think Russia made the classic mistake of invading another country's territory," he said. "But I still think it takes two to tango, and I've heard very little talk about peace."
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