Brazil sees ‘affinity’ with China over Iran: FM

Brazil shares “great affinity” with China over what course to take on Iran, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Thursday, as UN Security Council members mulled new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Amorim said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva outlined Brazil’s defense of Iran in the teeth of the sanctions threat in bilateral talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao ahead of a BRIC summit in Brasilia, explaining that he believed any sanctions would prove ineffective.

“Our impression… is that the effectiveness of sanctions is debatable,” Amorim said.

Lula set out the same position in talks with visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the foreign minister said.

“President Lula gave an explanation, to provide better transparency, on what we’ve done in relation with Iran. And we see great affinity with the points of view of each country,” Amorim said.

The comments were important in the context and timing of the UN sanctions proposal.

Permanent UN Security Council members the United States, Britain and France are leading a Western push to have broader sanctions imposed against Iran over its controversial nuclear program, which they believe hides efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Russia and China, also permanent members with power to veto any resolution, are reluctant to hammer Iran, with which it has important military and business dealings.

But their opposition appears to have softened in recent weeks, especially with increasingly strident boasts by Iran that it was pursuing uranium enrichment towards a level that could meet military requirements.

Brazil, a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, has come under intense pressure to back the sanctions, along with other Iran defenders Turkey and Lebanon.

So far, though, it has resisted, insisting instead on dialogue with Tehran that Western capitals say is not forthcoming.

The Brazilian president said dialogue “obviously required flexibility on the part of the Iranian government,” Amorim said.

Lula is also scheduled to make a visit to Iran next month, following up a visit that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made to Brazil last year.

India is not a member of the UN Security Council.

China’s Hu and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were due to hold their own one-to-one talks later Thursday, during which the issue of Iran could also be raised.

Meanwhile, ambassadors from the Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany, met for a second straight day on Iran in the UN headquarters in New York, but imposed a news blackout on their deliberations.

The six are trying to find common ground on a US draft resolution outlining sanctions against Tehran in five areas: arms embargo, energy, shipping, finance and targeted punitive measures against the Islamic republic’s powerful Revolutionary Guards, sources said.

Diplomats said they anticipated weeks of hard-nosed bargaining before a text can be brought to a vote by the full 15-member Security Council.