☢️ Brazil’s past as a nuclear broker

DIPLOMACY

Brazil's 2010 Iran deal: from breakthrough to backlash

Poised to host officials and representatives from several countries around the world — including Iran — at the upcoming BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is preparing to position itself at the center of the stormy debate over international security, even if that was never the BRICS’ original scope.

Indeed, if discussions do head in that direction next week, it won’t be Brazil’s first time. Back in 2010, at the end of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s second term, the country brokered a nuclear deal with Iran and Turkey — then led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, respectively.

The Tehran Declaration stipulated that Iran would, within a month, send 1,200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey and, within a year, receive 120 kg of uranium enriched to 20% — suitable for medical use, but not for building nuclear weapons. The idea was to show the world that Iran was willing to negotiate, as requested by the United States…

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