Rousseff underscores Iran-Brazil ties

Brazilian President-elect Dilma Rousseff says her country will maintain its ties with Iran in line with Brazil’s ‘peaceful’ foreign policy agenda, a report says.

Brazil’s first female president highlighted her country’s willingness to maintain ties with the Islamic Republic in an interview with CNN’s Spanish network on Thursday.

She explained her country’s anti-tension stance in its growing global role and pointed out, “We don’t believe that war is the method to solve conflicts. You will never see Brazil occupying itself with war.”

Rousseff, who worked in the ruling Workers’ Party under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said she helped the president build a good government.

“So Lula’s legacy is also partly mine. I had a direct hand in a majority of the government programs,” she went on to say.

“My government is going to have my face, my style,” she noted, adding that despite stylistic differences, the bulk of the policies will remain unchanged.

“We now have the opportunity to do more and better than what we have already accomplished because Brazil is in an extraordinarily better situation than when Lula’s government started in 2003,” said Rousseff.

The Islamic Republic of Iran and Brazil maintained cordial relations under the Brazilian incumbent president.

On her international agenda, Brazil’s president-elect also called for peace in the Middle East by means of a two-state solution.

Rousseff further stressed the need for coordination amongst Latin American countries and pledged to maximize “this strategic relationship” in the region for the bloc’s voice to be heard in the international arena.

She also underpinned the increasing role of women in Brazil’s polity and noted, “My election is a milestone, not because I was elected, but because I represent a process in which Brazilian women are increasingly aware of their role.”

Rousseff has become the first female president of Brazil and will take the reins of power on January 1, 2011.