News

MADRID, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday said that the United Nations (UN)
Security Council should negotiate with Iran to break its nuclear program
impasse.

"Now it depends on the UN
Security Council to sit and be willing to negotiate, because if they are
not willing to negotiate, everything will go backward," Lula said in
Madrid where he was attending the two-day Sixth European Union-Latin
America and Caribbean Summit.

Iran signed on Monday with
Brazil and Turkey a nuclear swap deal in which Tehran agreed to ship
the bulk of its 3.5 percent low-enriched uranium to Turkey for deposit
in exchange for 120 kilograms of 20 percent high-enriched uranium.

Lula said the agreement
was exactly what the United States had been seeking in the past five or
six months.

It was Lula's first
comment on the issue since Tuesday, when the United States presented to
the UN Security Council a proposal on sanctions against Iran, reportedly
supported by other countries in the Council.

Lula is a fierce advocate
of reforms in the Security Council to increase the number of its
permanent seats and include the emerging countries in the Council's
decisions.