Brazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro revealed in a televised interview that he saw no problem in possibly moving his country’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a platform he had promoted during his campaign. According to the Brazilian President-elect, any country had the right to decide on the location of its own embassy. That said, the Brazilian leader stressed that he does not seek to cause problems to anyone. “Regarding the embassy question, if Brazil decides to move its capital to Rio de Janeiro the issue is done. And other countries would move their embassies over too. I don’t see any problem in moving the Israeli embassy, I see no problem. It’s not a question of life and death, we have a lot of respect for Israel and for the Arab people. This (Brazil) is a country that is peaceful and we don’t want to cause problems with anyone. What we want is to trade with the world, to find peaceful ways to resolve problems. But we don’t want to raise a dust cloud here that will harm talks we are having with the rest of the world. Israel knows that respect that we have for them and the Arab people. And we are going to stabilise this issue of security,” President-Elect Jair Bolsonaro said.
In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised President-elect Bolsonaro, declaring “his intention to move the Brazilian Embassy to Jerusalem, a historic, correct and exciting step.”
Meanwhile, Officials in the Bolsonaro camp confirmed that the country’s next president is due to visit Israel next year after taking office.