Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, suffering from pneumonia, had to give up his state visit to China on Saturday, where he nevertheless intends to go “as soon as possible” in order to present his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping with a recovery plan. peace for Ukraine.
President Lula, 77, “has decided to postpone his trip to China. This postponement has been communicated to the Chinese authorities,” the Presidency’s communication secretariat said in a statement on Saturday, without providing a new travel date.
The presidential advisor for international affairs, Celso Amorim, who served as foreign minister under Lula’s first two governments (2003-2010), however told the daily O Globo that interest in the visit to China had not not changed and would be rescheduled “as soon as possible”.
“The president is doing very well and (his state of health) is progressing well,” the doctor who examined him, Roberto Kalil Filho, assured the daily Folha de S. Paulo, adding that he could return to work next week. , although his trip to China will have to wait at least ten days.
Lula was originally scheduled to travel to China on Saturday, but due to “mild pneumonia”, the trip, which involves around 20 hours by plane, was postponed for a day on Friday.
“Despite the clinical improvement, the medical service of the Presidency of the Republic recommends postponing the trip to China until the end of the cycle of viral transmission”, specifies Dr Ana Helena Germoglio in the press release from the presidency, indicating that Lula suffers from “bacterial and viral bronchopneumonia due to influenza A”.
High blood pressure and “flu-like symptoms” had prompted him to undergo medical examinations Thursday evening in Brasilia, after a very busy week with visits to four states of the immense Brazil.
Almost three months after his return to power and after the years of isolation of his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, the icon of the left intended to show, with this new trip abroad, his desire to position Brazil on the international scene.
Anxious to “talk to everyone”, he went to Argentina in January and to the United States in February. His trip to China was to end with a hook through the United Arab Emirates on March 31 and April 1.
Lula was to travel to Beijing at the head of a large delegation of six ministers, governors, deputies, senators and around 200 business leaders. According to local media, the latter have not canceled their trip.
China is Brazil’s largest trading partner: bilateral trade reached $150 billion last year.
Lula’s official agenda was to begin on Tuesday with an interview with Xi Jinping, to whom he was to present a peace plan for Ukraine, the outlines of which are still vague, however.
The Chinese president has already told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Moscow this week about a 12-point peace plan, which includes respecting the territorial sovereignty of all countries. Neither Brasilia nor Beijing imposed sanctions against Moscow.
At the end of November, shortly after his victory over Jair Bolsonaro after a very tense and exhausting campaign, President Lula underwent larynx surgery. A laryngoscopy then ruled out the presence of a new tumor in the former turner-miller, who had suffered from laryngeal cancer in 2011. He was declared in remission the following year, after undergoing radiotherapy sessions and chemotherapy.
03/26/2023 00:13:04 – Brasilia (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
