BRASILIA: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that the United States disagrees with controversial statement by the Brazilian leader comparing Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Holocaust.
During an over 90-minute meeting with Lula at the presidential palace in Brasilia, Blinken said the US does not agree with the statement.
A senior State Department official told journalists that the two leaders had a “frank exchange”.
Lula on Sunday termed Israel’s military offensive in Gaza a “genocide,” comparing it to the genocide of Jews at the hands of Hitler.
Israel reacted furiously, declaring the Brazilian president “persona non grata.”
A senior State Department official told journalists traveling with the secretary that Blinken raised the issue and made clear the US disagrees with those comments.
The official said the two sides also discussed whether there is room for diplomacy on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, another major issue over which Lula has often been at loggerheads with the US.
The official said that the US don’t see the conditions for diplomacy right now.
Blinken and Lula also discussed the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, as well as Venezuela, which is locked in a territorial conflict with neighboring Guyana over the oil-rich Essequibo region.
Blinken thanks Brazil
The official said Blinken thanked Brazil for its efforts to reduce tensions between Guyana and Venezuela.
Lula wrote on X that he and Blinken had discussed matters including a US-Brazilian initiative on helping workers, the environment and the clean-energy transition, as well as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
He shared a photo of himself and Blinken smiling and clasping hands.
Blinken said it had been a very, very good meeting, in brief statement to journalists as he left the presidential palace.
It is Blinken’s first visit to Brazil since taking office 3 years ago.
