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The Israel Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, plans to visit Brazil, a country that, in the last few days, through the chancellor Celso Amorim, tried to move forward a peace agreement in Middle East.
“This visit is in both leader`s timetables (for Netanyahu and Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva). It can´t be done now but in the future we will look for a proper date”, the Israeli Foreign Office general director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Dorit Shavit, said in a dialogue with the Agencia Judía de Noticias (AJN).
At first it was speculated that a possible visit from Netanyahu to Brazil was going to take place during August, however, Shavit said that the prime minister has a “very intense semester” because he and the US government are trying to “have direct conversations with the Palestinians”.
Netanyahu had an interview in Jerusalem with Amorim, last Sunday, during a one hour meeting that was held in the ministry council presidency.
Shavit explained that no bigger details of the meeting transcended, although she considered that conversations were oriented to the state of the relationships with Turkey and Syria. Amorim was also in Istanbul where he met with the Foreign Ministers of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, and of Iran, Manucher Mottaki, to talk about the Teheran nuclear agreement with the international community.
When asked about Brazil´s role as a mediator in the Middle East conflict, Shavit was cautious.
“We generally didn´t think to get new ideas from people or leaders that weren´t inside this kind of conflict, which is really complex”, explained Shavit.
However, she said that Brazilian FM “has visited Israel in several opportunities and is very interested in intervening in this conflict”.
Amorim met today, in the Palestinian Authority headquarters, with the prime minister, Salam Fayad, and with his Palestinian peer, Riad Al Malki.
Because of this meeting, Shavit showed herself in favour of waiting the next Lula Da Silva´s government statement when Amorim comes to Brasilia.
Israel and the Palestinians started last May indirect discussions, called “of proximity”, mediated by the US envoy for Middle East, George Mitchell.
The direct conversations had been suspended during the Israeli militar offensive during the end of 2008 against the Gaza border, controlled by Hamas.
Brazil is looking forward being the mediator in the Middle East conflict after an agreement arranged in may with Turkey about the nuclear Iranian program.
About the situation that affects the Jewish community in Venezuela, Shavit said that it was “very hard” after de relationship rupture between Hugo Chávez government with Colombia.
“We think it is hard after Venezuela cut the relationship with Colombia because it was very important for the Jewish community in Venezuela”, Shavit added to AJN, the Jewish news agency.
Chávez`s government also cut, at the beginnings of 2009, the relationships with Israel because of the Gaza offensive.