Brazil summons Argentine diplomat over Flavio Bolsonaro's flight to the United States
Brazil has called in Argentina's top diplomat in Brasilia to explain Buenos Aires' role in Senator Flavio Bolsonaro's journey to the United States after his election defeat, a move Argentina has denied, in the latest strain on relations between the two neighbours.
Brazil has summoned Argentina's most senior diplomat in Brasilia to explain the Argentine government's role in the departure of Senator Flavio Bolsonaro for the United States, two Brazilian government sources told Reuters on Friday, in a fresh diplomatic flare-up between the two South American neighbours.
The sources said the foreign ministry called in Maria Emilia Cortes, Argentina's charge d'affaires in Brasilia, on Thursday. She was received by Joao Marcelo de Queiroz, the ministry's director for South America, one of the sources said. A Brazilian diplomatic source speaking to the AFP news agency gave the same account, describing a brief meeting of only a few minutes at the ministry's headquarters, the Itamaraty Palace, after which neither government issued a public statement.
Argentina has denied that any such summons took place. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, commenting on a media report about the move, wrote on social media that 'there was no request for explanation'. Brazil's foreign ministry declined to comment on the reports.
At the centre of the dispute is Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator and the son of imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was defeated by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Sunday's presidential run-off election. Argentine authorities have said Bolsonaro, his wife and their two daughters crossed a bridge into northern Argentina on Tuesday evening before boarding a chartered aircraft.
From the Argentine border city of Puerto Iguazu, in Misiones province, the family flew to Guayaquil in Ecuador and then on to Miami, arriving in the United States on Wednesday morning, according to the accounts given by both Reuters and the Buenos Aires Times. Argentina's migration directorate confirmed the family entered Argentina late on Tuesday night, heading for Ecuador and then Miami, on a route that avoided Brazilian airspace.
The journey matters because a Brazilian Supreme Court order had required Bolsonaro to surrender his passports and remain in Brazil as part of a money-laundering investigation, in which he denies wrongdoing. His departure therefore breached a court order, and Brazilian investigators are now examining how he was able to cross the border and board a flight despite that restriction.
The row lands on top of an already strained relationship. Brazil downgraded its diplomatic ties with Argentina in August after President Javier Milei directed insults at Lula, having travelled to Brazil earlier in the year for the launch of Flavio Bolsonaro's presidential campaign. Brasilia permanently recalled its ambassador to Buenos Aires, and Cortes has headed Argentina's mission in Brazil since August, when ambassador Daniel Raimondi left the country following the downgrade.
For Buenos Aires, the episode is awkward in a different way. If Argentine officials did help arrange or smooth the senator's transit, as Brazilian officials are seeking to establish, it would amount to involvement in the flight of a defeated candidate who was under a court travel ban. If they did not, the denial from Quirno leaves Brasilia's summons looking like a misstep, which may explain why both sides have so far avoided a formal public statement.
For Brasilia, the questions go beyond one man's journey. The Bolsonaro family remains a powerful force in Brazilian politics, and Flavio Bolsonaro's presence in the United States, where his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro is also based, gives the family's opposition to the Lula government a platform abroad. How Lula's government handles the case will be watched as a test of whether it treats the court order as a matter of law enforcement or as a wider political confrontation.
For now, Brasilia has announced no further diplomatic measures against Argentina. What happens next could take several forms: Brazil may press formally for an explanation or for cooperation with its investigation, Argentina may maintain its denial and treat the matter as closed, or the dispute may simply join the list of grievances that have already left relations between the two countries at their lowest point in years. None of those outcomes is certain, and much will depend on what, if anything, either government says in public in the coming days.
More in News
NewsHundreds evacuate besieged Oleshky under Melania Trump-brokered ceasefire in first joint Ukraine-Russia relief operation
NewsThousands of students and workers march across Italy in nationwide strike over living costs and school funding
News