The President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).| Photo: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil.

The agenda for this Monday (23) of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) with the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has been cancelled. The meeting was supposed to take place on the eve of the meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), in Argentina, but the Venezuelan withdrew from his participation.

In a note, the Maduro dictatorship cited an alleged “plan by the neo-fascist right” to carry out “a series of aggressions against the delegation” of Venezuela during the CELAC meeting. “They intend to put on a deplorable show to disturb the positive effects of such an important regional event, and thus contribute to the campaign of discredit -already unsuccessful- that was launched against our country by the North American Empire”, says the statement from Venezuela.

When questioned, Lula stated that he is against “too much interference” in negotiations to resolve Venezuela’s political problems. The Brazilian president defended that dialogue is the way out for the country to return to democratic normality.

“We should have two things in mind. First, we very calmly allow the self-determination of peoples to be respected in any country. In the same way that I am against the territorial occupation that Russia made in Ukraine, I am against a lot of interference in the Venezuela’s process,” he said.

During the administration of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the Brazilian embassy in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, was closed by the Brazilian government. Lula, however, intends to send a mission to the country to restore relations with Maduro.

“To solve the problem of Venezuela, we are going to solve it with dialogue, not with blockade. We are going to solve it with dialogue and not with the threat of occupation. We are going to solve it with dialogue and not with personal offenses”, concluded Lula.