MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lula calls Chavez “my friend” but also defends Congress

Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva admitted Friday the existence of problems between Brasilia and Caracas, although he downplayed the tone of the dispute with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez, whom he called my “friend”.

"Nobody can make me discuss with President Chavez who is my friend", said the Brazilian president during an interview with the French television channel France 24. Lula da Silva statements come in the midst of a dispute with Venezuela over her incorporation request to Mercosur and following Chavez warnings about a withdrawal if the Brazilian congress does not approve it. "We have similar problems to the European Union" admitted Lula da Silva who insisted that"there's no crisis". However the Brazilian president pointed out that Venezuela still is not a member of the block, therefore it can not abandon it and recalled that the Congress which allegedly is "offensive" to Chavez is the same one that came to his defence when the coup to oust him. "It's one of those contradictions of politics with which one must learn to live, otherwise we would be fighting all the time". This week Argentine president Nestor Kirchner revealed he had approached his Brazilian counterpart to try and accelerate the approval by the Brazilian Congress of Venezuela's Mercosur incorporation protocol. The incident began when the Brazilian Congress in an open letter asked Chavez to reconsider his decision not to renew Venezuela's main and longest established television station RCTV. Chavez reacted calling Brazilian Senators "parrots of Washington" adding he would only wait until September to have Venezuela's Mercosur incorporation protocol approved. From Lisbon President Lula da Silva said that if Chavez does not want to stay, let him not stay, "to become a member of Mercosur there are rules, but none to leave".