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DE RUEHBR #1368/01 3291906
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P 251906Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5482
INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 0134
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 0062
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 0106

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRASILIA 001368 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/25/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM AORC CASC BR IR
SUBJECT: AHMADINEJAD VISIT READOUT: A WELL-SCRIPTED AFFAIR 
 
REF: A. BRASILIA 1341 
     ¶B. BRASILIA 1300 
     ¶C. BRASILIA 1230 
 
BRASILIA 00001368  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: Acting Charge D'Affaires Cherie Jackson for reasons 1.4 
(b) and (d). 
 
¶1.  (SBU) This message covers our initial readout of the 
visit to Brazil by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 
Follow-up messages will be sent once we obtain a more 
in-depth readout of the conversation between President Lula 
and President Ahmadinejad. 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶2.  (C) President Lula welcomed President Ahmadinejad to 
Brazil on November 23, calling him a "good friend" and 
publicly supporting Iran's right to a nuclear program for 
civilian use, but declined public comment on the actual 
aims of Iran's nuclear program, the IAEA/P5 1 proposal, or 
the state of democracy and human rights in Iran. 
Ahmadinejad's public comments were relatively restrained, 
including a lengthy endorsement of Brazil's main goal -- UN 
Security Council reform and a permanent UNSC seat for Brazil. 
 He also said of the 5 1 offer that Iran "in principle agrees 
with the proposal presented," before backtracking. 
Ahmadinejad and Lula met privately for three hours, but we 
have no solid information yet about their conversation.  The 
visit featured the signing of several expected bilaterals, 
including agreements to promote commercial cooperation and to 
exempt diplomatic passport holders of certain visa 
requirements.  Ahmadinejad's visit illustrated critical 
foreign policy differences between Lula's PT and other 
political parties; front-running 2010 presidential candidate 
Jose Serra (PSDB) wrote an editorial opposing the visit.  A 
planned early evening speech by Ahmadinejad in a local 
university was canceled, in part because the crowd was 
hostile and security precautions were weak.  End summary. 
 
Three-Hour Meeting 
------------------ 
 
¶3.  (C) After arriving late morning, Ahmadinejad spoke with 
President Lula in Itamaraty (Ministry of Foreign Relations, 
or MRE) for three hours before advancing to the press 
conference.  (Note: In part, the length of the meeting might 
be due to the necessity of interpreting from Farsi to English 
to Portuguese and back again throughout.  End note.)  MRE 
officials have told us that, as is standard for such 
meetings, no one at MRE below Foreign Minister 
Celso Amorim was present for any length of time.  In a 
conversation with poloff the following day, Ricardo Luis 
Pires Ribeiro, Iran/Central Asia Desk Director and control 
officer for the Ahmadinejad visit, expressed confidence based 
on his post-visit conversations with Lula's staff that the 
President of Brazil had pressed Ahmadinejad to accept the 5 1 
proposal and that "progress had been made."  Pires saw Lula 
when he emerged from the meeting with Ahmadinejad, visibly 
tired, to tell his staff he was "satisfied" with the 
conversation. 
 
Press Conference 
---------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) During the late afternoon press conference, Lula 
made clear that Brazil "defends the right of Iran to develop 
and enrich uranium for the production of energy for peaceful 
purposes," pointing out that Brazil is defending the same 
rights for itself as it develops its own civilian nuclear 
technology.  He also emphasized that nuclear disarmament and 
civilian technology must advance together.  Lula encouraged 
Iran to continue talking with the international community to 
reach a solution with regard to its nuclear program.  He did 
not offer any value judgments on the actual status or aims of 
Iran's nuclear programs, nor did he make any statements 
endorsing or otherwise evaluating the 5 1 proposal.  Nor did 
Lula directly address the health of democracy and human 
rights in Iran,  although he did make several general 
statements about human rights and tolerance in his remarks at 
the joint press event that were clearly designed to appease 
critics of Iran's human rights record. 
 
¶5.  (C) Ahmadinejad's public statement was also relatively 
restrained, emphasizing the need for UN Security Council 
reform -- including a permanent UNSC seat for Brazil -- and 
IMF reforms, among other objectives.  His public remarks were 
much milder than the prepared remarks sent by the Iranian 
Embassy to the media the previous night, which blamed the 
United States for a multitude of sins and strongly suggested 
 
BRASILIA 00001368  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
Brazilian solidarity in these views.  Pires said that 
Itamaraty had been alarmed upon seeing those remarks, and 
that Lula in turn agreed to press Ahmadinejad during the 
meeting to tone down his comments at the joint press 
conference.  The result was a speech that often sounded 
unrehearsed, spoke in generalities, and criticized "the west" 
rather than specific nations. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Only one question was permitted from the media -- a 
question about the aims of Iran's nuclear program --  which 
Lula promptly deflected to Ahmadinejad without giving a 
substantive answer.  Ahmadinejad spoke at length, claiming 
that Iran had met all IAEA requirements and asserting Iran's 
preferred solution to purchase fuel to enrich uranium.  He 
later said that Iran "in principle agrees with the (P5 1) 
proposal presented," and that the Iranian government "wants 
to finalize an accord."  He then backtracked, issuing a 
series of vague complaints about hegemomy and imperialism, 
and blaming the various actions of past U.S. presidents for 
creating Iran's current predicament.  Ahmadinejad generally 
stayed on the joint Iran-Brazilian message about the right to 
nuclear enrichment for peaceful means. 
 
Voices of Dissent 
----------------- 
 
¶7.  (C) The President of Iran's visit provoked several 
demonstrations from civilian groups across the country, 
including in Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Curitiba, and 
Florianopolis.  The Jewish, Baha'i, and GLBT communities 
were most prominent, often protesting together.  Ahmadinejad 
had been scheduled to address students in the early evening 
at a local Brasilia university, IESB, in an event roughly 
modeled on the 2007 Ahmadinejad engagement at Columbia 
University.  According to Pires, MRE recommended canceling 
shortly before the engagement upon finding that the 1,000 
students waiting in line included a large number of 
protestors and that the police had not properly vetted the 
site for security concerns until the morning of the visit. 
After returning to his hotel, Ahmadinejad apparently still 
planned to attend but later changed his mind and held another 
short press conference at his hotel, in which he made more 
pointed remarks about the United States, Israel, the 
Holocaust, and other topics. 
 
What the Ahmadinejad Visit Reveals About Brazilian Politics 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The Ahmadinejad visit revealed sharp differences in 
foreign policy world views among Brazilian political parties, 
which figure to help shape Brazil's approach to Iran after 
the October 2010 presidential and congressional elections. 
On November 23, front-running presidential contender Jose 
Serra (PSDB) published an editorial in Sao Paulo's Folha 
newspaper strongly criticzing Ahmadinejad's visit.  In his 
op-ed Serra drew contrasts with Lula by characterizing Iran's 
recent presidential elections as fraudulent, condemning 
Iranian support of terrorist activities beyond its borders 
(including in Argentina), and arguing that Brazil must not 
undermine its case as an aspirant to a UNSC permanent seat by 
standing next to a government that does not meet its IAEA 
obligations.  Other PSDB members were even more vocal against 
the visit, as was the center-right opposition Democratas 
(DEM) party. 
 
¶9.  (C) While members of Lula's Worker's Party (PT) defended 
the visit in public and in private conversations with us, 
often with mild reservations, other parties within the 
President's governing coalition have been decidedly less 
enthusiatic.  Senate President Jose Sarney and Chamber of 
Deputies President Michel Temer, both from PMDB, the largest 
party in Congress, met briefly with Ahmadinejad; the 
discussion with Temer was frosty, with Sarney it was 
non-substantive.  Chamber Presidency staff later told poloff 
that Temer did not want to do the meeting, calling it "a 
necessary matter of protocol but still embarrassing."  He had 
been resigned to the meeting's eventuality after giving the 
green light for Israeli President Shimon Peres to speak to a 
joint session of Congress earlier in the month (Peres and 
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visits to be reported 
septel).  Other leading figures within the governing 
coalition were more strongly negative, including Senator 
Francisco Dornelles (PP), who told poloff the visit was a 
"travesty." 
 
Comment: A Qualified Success for Lula 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶10.  (C) Although the way both Ahmadinejad and Lula have 
handled previous visits created concern about what each might 
 
BRASILIA 00001368  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
say, this visit turned out to be unexpectedly tame.  Gone was 
the tone from the November 20 visit by President Abbas, when 
Lula blamed the United States for problems in the Middle East 
and said the USG should not be mediating discussion in the 
region.  By taking the unusual step of sticking to the tight 
script provided by Itamaraty and his advisors, Lula was able 
to lay out Brazil's key foreign policy goals -- a UNSC 
permanent seat, development of a domestic nuclear program, 
and an increased profile in the world -- without raising 
further red flags.  While we do not yet know the full content 
of Lula's three-hour discussion with Ahmadinejad, Brazil's 
apparent success in strongly reining in Ahmadinejad's 
prepared public discourse indicates that he took Lula's 
advice seriously.  Lula and Itamaraty almost certainly 
achieved their own goals with the visit, but thee objectives 
have not been well communicated to he Brazilian public, 
media, or other political prties, nor is it likely that they 
will be in advance of Lula's planned visit to Iran, scheduled 
fo April 2010.  Brazil's relations with Iran will reain a 
contentious issue domestically, which suggsts that the GOB's 
emerging friendship with Iranwill continue to be carefully 
qualified and open to revision.  End comment. 
JACKSON