Adriana Franzin
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, expressed Brazil's support for United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution 1636. The resolution, approved unanimously by the Council, asks Syrian government authorities to cooperate with the investigation of the terrorist attack that killed the Lebanese ex-prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, on February 14, in Beirut.

In a speech at the Council meeting on Monday (31), the minister declared that the determinations of the resolution "neither presuppose nor authorize measures against Syria without a collective decision of the Council, based on a careful assessment of the facts." Amorim observed that the decisions should reconcile the pursuit of justice, regarding the attack, with the search for harmony, via institutional and political advances.

However, the minister went on to say, "Brazil will not back hasty decisions that could lead to an undesirable escalation of this situation or endanger even more the stability in the region." According to him, the Council should by guided by "balance and realism."

Amorim considered fitting the proposal to extend the mandate of the Independent International Investigation Commission through December 15. He recalled that Brazil is home to a community of 10 million people of Syrian and Lebanese origin and that the country abstained in the vote on resolution 1559, which called for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, in view of the "possible undesirable interference in a delicate internal matter."

Translation: David Silberstein