Brazil, Cuban Leaders Sign Agreement to Explore for Oil in Gulf of Mexico

Jan 16, 02:36 PM

["Lula Meets Fidel, Signs Agreement To Explore for Oil in Gulf of Mexico " - Agencia Estado Headline]

Havana, 15 January (AE-AP) -The president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, met tonight with Cuban leader Fidel Castro in a surprising finale to a 24-hour visit, in which Lula offered the communist government credit to buy food and to carry out infrastructure construction projects and signed an agreement to explore for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

A spokesman for the Brazilian president said the leaders had a private meeting, but he refused to say how many hours the meeting lasted and where it took place.

Lula is a friend of Fidel's, but it was not clear if the two would meet during the Brazilian president's trip to Cuba, the second one since he took office in 2003.

Fidel, 81, has been seen very little in public since he was hospitalized and underwent several surgeries, which forced him to cede power to his brother, Raul Castro, in July 2006. His current state of health is a secret, although he seems to be recovering.

Hours before the meeting, Lula signed agreements that extend the Brazilian credit granted to Cuba to buy food, medicine, and infrastructure work on hotels and roads. Lula strengthened the bonds between Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy and country in population and territory, and Cuba, governed provisionally by Raul Castro. Cuba suffers from an economic embargo by the United States that has already lasted nearly 50 years.

Lula also signed an agreement for Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras [Brazilian Petroleum Corporation], to explore for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Lula decided that this would not be a goodbye visit to Fidel; in truth it was a vote of confidence in Raul Castro," said Phil Peters, a political analyst specializing in Cuba at the Lexington Institute in Washington, USA.

The credits alone for buying food can add up to $100 million, Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.

Originally published by Agencia Estado news agency, Sao Paulo, in Portuguese 0051 16 Jan 08.

(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Americas. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Brazil, Cuban Leaders Sign Agreement to Explore for Oil in Gulf of Mexico
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