In Paris, Lula meets with the Cuban dictator and the president of South Africa

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) met this Thursday with the dictator of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and with the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa. According to Planalto, the meeting with the Cuban dictator “marked the resumption of dialogue with Cuba, abandoned in recent years by the previous government.” They talked “about issues related to Latin America and took advantage of the meeting to discuss issues related to the world situation”.

With Ramaphosa, the president spoke about the next BRICS summit (which brings together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in August and about the war in Ukraine, a convergent issue between the two leaders, although divergent from the position of the western powers. . The two presidents spoke of “options to work for peace in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine” and Ramaphosa also passed on to Lula details of his recent visit to Russia and Ukraine, carried out along with six other African leaders.

“At the meeting with Putin, the South African president defended the end of the war, especially due to the consequences of the conflict in the countries of his continent. According to him, the difficulties to import grains from Ukraine and fertilizers from Russia are compromising food security in several places of Africa and the world”, reported Planalto.

Lula held the two meetings in a hotel on the sidelines of the summit on a new global financial pact that will bring together around 50 heads of state and government until Friday in Paris. The objective of the initiative is to lay the foundations of a development financing system that combines the fight against poverty with actions against climate change.

The president, who arrived in Paris this afternoon from Italy, had a busy schedule of bilateral meetings. Lula also met with the Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry; and with the president of COP 28, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, from the United Arab Emirates. The petista still had lunch with former president Dilma Rousseff, current head of the bank of the BRICS group.

Lula also spoke about the preservation of the environment and the Amazon during the “Power Our Planet” event in Paris. That night, he is due to attend a dinner at the Élysée Palace. In addition to participating in the summit of the new global financial pact, Lula will have lunch with the French president, Emmanuel Macron; a bilateral meeting with the president of Congo, Denis Sassou-Nguesso; and a dinner with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.