The new government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) will restore full diplomatic relations with Venezuela starting this Sunday (1st).
Mauro Vieira, who will be sworn in as Minister of Foreign Affairs this Sunday, said he will send diplomats to the neighboring country in the first days of his government to reopen the Brazilian embassy in Caracas.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro confirmed his participation in Lula’s inauguration, after President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) revoked a 2019 ordinance that prevented his entry into Brazil.
Relations between the two countries had been suspended since 2019, when former president Jair Bolsonaro decided to recognize then-opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the “interim president” of Venezuela.
The reestablishment of relations with Venezuela is seen as a success by the vast majority of specialists in international relations, some of them heard by the CNN in the last days.
Feliciano Guimarães, academic director of the Brazilian Center for International Relations (Cebri) and professor of international relations at USP, says that cutting off relations with Venezuela was “a blunder” by the Bolsonaro government.
“Brazil had a lot of investments there, it had a positive export agenda. If you invest in and maintain relationships with a country, you have the means to influence it. When you isolate, you do not influence and do not change anything”, he says.
A diplomat close to Mauro Vieira told the CNN something along the same lines. According to him, if there is no dialogue, there is no way to influence any country.
“That’s why it’s essential to have close relations with Venezuela,” he says. He claims, however, that it is not yet clear whether Brazil will in fact want to influence the political decisions of the Venezuelan government.
“Critical support”
The former Brazilian ambassador in London and Washington Rubens Barbosa believes that Brazil will indeed have a proactive position in relations with its neighbor.
“I believe that Brazil will have a very active position for the return of democracy in Venezuela.
If the new government just decides to continue expressing unrestricted support for any Venezuelan policy, this could create internal problems (with regard to the right-wing opposition in Brazil)”, says the ambassador, an analyst at CNN .
Former Brazilian ambassador to China Marcos Caramuru says that the recognition of the Maduro government is just the starting point in this relationship.
According to him, this has to be done because Maduro is the de facto president.
He says that it is still too early to discuss how bilateral relations will be, but he believes that there is a possibility that the Brazilian government will only express support without much criticism of Caracas.
The diplomat, linked to Vieira, however, is emphatic: Brazil will support Venezuela, but it will be critical support.
Source: CNN Brasil
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