BRASILIA: European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will begin an official visit to Brazil Sunday for wide-ranging talks, notably on the civil strife in Syria and the Iranian nuclear crisis, the foreign ministry said Friday.
A ministry spokesman said Ashton would meet Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota here Monday for talks that will also touch on the Eurozone debt crisis, the stalled Middle East peace process, talks on a trade agreement between the EU and the South American trade bloc Mercosur and preparations for next June's Rio summit on sustainable development.
The EU's top diplomat also hopes to meet President Dilma Rousseff.
Tuesday, Ashton is to travel to Sao Paulo before wrapping up her visit the next day.
Ashton's visit comes as the UN Security Council is struggling to agree a resolution that would condemn the violence in Syria, which, according to rights groups, has killed at least 6,000 people since it erupted in March.
Veto-wielding council member Russia, an ally of Damascus, signaled Friday that it could not support the latest UN draft resolution on Syria .
That draft does not explicitly call on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down or mention an arms embargo or sanctions, though it "fully supports" an Arab League plan to facilitate a democratic transition.
On Wednesday Ashton urged the Security Council to stand by the people of Syria and act immediately to stop violence there.
Ashton was also likely to raise the heightened tension over Iran's nuclear ambitions amid speculation that Israel was contemplating air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, with or without US help.
Western nations, who accused Tehran of seeking a covert nuclear weapons capability, have ramped up economic sanctions against Iran over the past three months, since the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, issued a report saying it had evidence the Islamic republic appeared to be conducting research on atomic warheads.
The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on companies dealing with Iran's financial sector, and an EU ban on Iranian oil imports is being phased in over the next five months.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2012
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