“The president of Brazil is an optimist, so I’ll be an optimist, too,” Medvedev said after talks with Lula in Moscow today. “I give him 30 percent” chance of success, Medvedev said with a smile.
Medvedev said Lula’s trip to Iran tomorrow “may be the last chance” for a negotiated solution before the United Nations Security Council considers new sanctions.
Lula is making his first visit to Tehran, after hosting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in November, to revive a plan to supply Iran with nuclear fuel and stimulate talks about its program, presidential spokesman Marcelo Baumbach said on May 11.
U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said this week that if Lula fails, efforts to negotiate with Iran should end and pressure for sanctions should intensify. “At that point we believe there should be consequences for a failure to respond,” he said.
Lula said in Moscow that he’ll fly to Iran “convinced” that an agreement can be reached.
“I’ll need to use everything I’ve learned in my long political life to convince my friend Ahmadinejad to come to an agreement on the proposals put forward by the world community,” he said.
By Lyubov Pronina –With assistance from Anastasia Ustinova in Moscow, Andre Soliani in Brasilia and Matthew Bristow in Bogota. Editor: Patrick G. Henry
To contact the reporter on this story: Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Willy Morris at wmorris@bloomberg.net
Source: Business Week
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