2023-09-11 09:22:51
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has backtracked on his security guarantee for Russian President Vladimir Putin if he visits Brazil. “I don’t know if Brazil’s judiciary will imprison him. It’s the judiciary that decides, not the government,” Lula told reporters in New Delhi on Monday. At the same time, he questioned his country’s membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“Emerging countries often sign things that are detrimental to them,” said Brazil’s head of state. He doesn’t want to resign, Lula assured, but “I want to know why we’re members but not the United States, not Russia, not India, not China.”
Lula said on Sunday on the sidelines of the G-20 summit that Putin was not at risk of arrest despite an international arrest warrant issued for him in Brazil. “If I am the president of Brazil and if he comes to Brazil, he will not be arrested under any circumstances,” he assured.
Putin has avoided traveling abroad since the start of the war
The ICC, based in The Hague, issued an arrest warrant against Putin last March. The Russian president has avoided international meetings since the start of the war of aggression in Ukraine. Putin also did not attend the summit in India over the weekend, even though the country, unlike Brazil, has never joined the ICC.
On Saturday, the G-20 participants adopted a statement in which Moscow was not explicitly condemned for the war in Ukraine. Instead, all countries were urged not to use force to seize territory.
Published/Updated: Recommendations: 9 Matthias Wyssuwa, Kiev Published/Updated: Recommendations: 11 Till Fähnders and Manfred Schäfers, New Delhi Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 15
The next G-20 meeting will take place in November 2024 in the Brazilian metropolis of Rio de Janeiro. Lula said he hopes “by then the war will be over”.
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