Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is not ready to provide his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, with security guarantees at the G20 summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2024.
The question of whether Putin will be arrested in Brazil in connection with the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrant on suspicion of committing war crimes in Ukraine is not within his competence, Lula said on Monday, December 4, in Berlin during German-Brazilian intergovernmental consultations, DW reports.
"Will he be arrested when he arrives? Maybe yes, maybe no. This will be decided by the judiciary," Lula said.
At the same time, the Brazilian president noted that he intends to send Putin an invitation to the G20 summit.
Unlike Russia and the United States, Brazil is a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. Back in September, Lula said that the Russian head of state does not face arrest in Brazil. However, he later retracted his assurances, explaining that this issue should be resolved by "the judiciary, not the government."
Putin has already skipped the G20 summit in New Delhi to avoid possible political embarrassment and the risk of being arrested on an ICC warrant.
The court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president in March, accusing him of illegally deporting Ukrainian children. The Kremlin rejected the accusation and declared the ICC warrant legally null and void.
Nevertheless, the Russian president avoided traveling to international conferences to avoid possible risks, and sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to India to participate in the G20 summit, even though India is not even a signatory to the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court.