AHMADINEJAD VISIT READOUT: A WELL-SCRIPTED AFFAIR

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

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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

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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

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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