12/20/2014
SAO PAULO – Brazil “actively participated” in the process leading to this week’s announcement by the United States and Cuba that they are restoring diplomatic ties after more than 50 years, President Dilma Rousseff’s foreign affairs adviser said Friday.
“We have been involved for some years in talks between Cuba and the United States,” Marco Aurelio Garcia told Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Garcia said Cuban President Raul Castro asked him to take soundings on the possibility for dialogue with Washington.
“And he told me: ‘We are ready to bargain from A to Z, with no restrictions,’” the Brazilian official said.
“That was a year ago,” Garcia said. “From there they had talks mediated by the Vatican, which led to the announcement.”
Garcia also defended Brazil’s participation in infrastructure projects in Cuba.
“The criticism of Brazilian investment in Cuba is ideological. But we operate under realistic criteria,” he said.
During the election campaign that ended in October with Rousseff’s winning a second four-year term, opposition parties criticized the role of state-run development bank BNDES in financing work by Brazilian companies on Cuba’s new mega-port in Mariel.
Since 2009, BNDES has disbursed $765 million for projects in Cuba.
The U.S.-Cuba thaw represents a great opportunity for the roughly 300 Brazilian companies that operate on the island, according Brazil construction giant Odebrecht, the lead contractor on the Mariel project.
Garcia said the new relationship between Washington and Havana “creates conditions for a fluid dialogue between the United States and Latin America.”
source
SAO PAULO – Brazil “actively participated” in the process leading to this week’s announcement by the United States and Cuba that they are restoring diplomatic ties after more than 50 years, President Dilma Rousseff’s foreign affairs adviser said Friday.
“We have been involved for some years in talks between Cuba and the United States,” Marco Aurelio Garcia told Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Garcia said Cuban President Raul Castro asked him to take soundings on the possibility for dialogue with Washington.
“And he told me: ‘We are ready to bargain from A to Z, with no restrictions,’” the Brazilian official said.
“That was a year ago,” Garcia said. “From there they had talks mediated by the Vatican, which led to the announcement.”
Garcia also defended Brazil’s participation in infrastructure projects in Cuba.
“The criticism of Brazilian investment in Cuba is ideological. But we operate under realistic criteria,” he said.
During the election campaign that ended in October with Rousseff’s winning a second four-year term, opposition parties criticized the role of state-run development bank BNDES in financing work by Brazilian companies on Cuba’s new mega-port in Mariel.
Since 2009, BNDES has disbursed $765 million for projects in Cuba.
The U.S.-Cuba thaw represents a great opportunity for the roughly 300 Brazilian companies that operate on the island, according Brazil construction giant Odebrecht, the lead contractor on the Mariel project.
Garcia said the new relationship between Washington and Havana “creates conditions for a fluid dialogue between the United States and Latin America.”
source
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