BRASILIA, April 9 (NNN-XINHUA) — Brazil on Friday officially announced it will rejoin the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), from which it withdrew in 2019.
“As Brazil resumes its main international alliances, it will once again join the Union of South American Nations,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
It added that the measure will take effect on May 6 and “places the country back in the group created during President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s second administration.”
“Brazil ratifies its commitment to the consolidation of South America as a zone of peace and cooperation, in line with … promoting regional integration,” the foreign ministry said in another statement.
“UNASUR’s revitalization and updating will be a collective process through dialogue among all the countries of the region,” it added.
UNASUR, established in 2008, is an intergovernmental regional organization once comprised of 12 South American countries. Brazil formally withdrew from the regional organization in April 2019.
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina will officially rejoin the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to “promote its institutional revitalization and build an increasingly integrated region,” Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero said on Thursday.
Argentina left the bloc in 2019.
Cafiero described the return as crucial for Argentina, for it would consolidate an increasingly integrated region “with greater intra-regional trade and higher levels of cooperation for development.”
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez announced on March 21 the decision to rejoin the regional bloc during a meeting in Buenos Aires with members of the Puebla Group and the Latin American Council for Justice and Democracy.
At the end of the meeting, the president said: “in Latin America we are all in the same boat… That is why we must revitalize UNASUR as soon as possible.”
After Uruguay’s withdrawal from the organization in 2020, only Guyana, Suriname, Bolivia and Venezuela remain in union. — NNN-XINHUA
