MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mercosur has become more operational.

Argentina and Brazil sought to play down their trade differences yesterday during a meeting between Presidents Néstor Kirchner and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in New York.

"The greatness of Brazil is linked to an industrialized Argentina," Lula told Kirchner, according to Argentine government sources.

Kirchner yesterday spent his first full day of work in a five-day official visit to New York, where today he is to attend and give a speech at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations.

The President also met yesterday with Spanish Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and spoke before a special summit against poverty and hunger organized by Da Silva and attended by around 50 world leaders.

The breakfast meeting with Lula was designed to overcome recent disputes about trade sectors.

The latest row earlier this month involved the sensitive car manufacturing industry, one of the essential pillars of Mercosur, with Kirchner announcing Argentina would not liberalize trade with Brazil in 2006 as initially agreed because the gap between the two countries had widened in the last few years.

Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa, who attended the meeting, said that the two presidents decided not to talk about particular rows and instead committed themselves to introduce better institutional systems to overcome disputes.

"Mercosur has to become more operational and aim at more ambitious goals," Kirchner and Lula agreed, according to the sources.