Brazil jumps aboard Iran's Latin American bandwagon

US and Israeli policies have suffered another setback in the face of Brazil's consent to sell Iran quantities of uranium. The deal will be announced during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Brasilia this week with 110 representatives of 65 Iranian companies. It will include secret clauses covering nuclear cooperation and reciprocal arms sales as Iran continues its march of conquest in Latin America.
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was not the only godfather of the Brazilian-Iranian transaction; another live wire with Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian Atomic Energy Commission (as first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 392 on April 17: Iran Eyes Nuclear Breakthrough with Brazil).
To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .
The Russian official tipped Tehran off to the high potential of this connection both for gain and for planting a second large stake in America's back yard.
Friday, May 1, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dubbed the Ahmadinejad visit to Brasilia "quite disturbing." She said: "I don't think in today's world, where it's a multi-polar world, where we are competing for attention and relationships with the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, that it's in our interest to turn our backs on our own hemisphere."
Last week, Tehran signed a broad military cooperation pact with Caracas.
In addition to the public trade and cooperation accords Ahmadinejad will sign with Brazilian president Luiz Inacio da Silva, the two countries have also quietly agreed on exchanges of nuclear and arms production experts. But Tehran is keen most of all on dipping into Brazil's extensive uranium deposits.
Last October, Kiriyenko visited Brasilia and offered his hosts modern Russian methods for extracting the uranium, new nuclear power plants and superconducting technologies.
Russian scientists surveyed 25-30 percent of Brazilian territory at shallow depths for uranium deposits; even that limited search uncovered reserves of 350,000 tons, which the Russian nuclear czar believed could be increased at least threefold - or as much as ten times over.
Kiriyenko planned to win a concession for developing Brazil's uranium mines by offering its government a big ready-made customer, Iran.
DEBKAfile's Washington sources note that the Iranian-Brazilian transactions mark US President Barack Obama's failure to dissuade Luiz Inacio da Sliva - whom he met at the White House on March 14 and praised at the G20 summit in London on April 2 – to move ahead on his nuclear ties with Iran, any more than a handshake worked for winning Chavez over.
Israel was equally unsuccessful in the use of its continental contacts for canceling the Iranian president's Brazil visit.