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Snooping new challenge to ties with US- Brazil
August 14, 2013, 9:28 am

[AP]

The two foreign ministers discussed President Rousseff’s scheduled state visit to the United States in October [AP]

Revelations surrounding the US global surveillance network pose a “new challenge” to ties between Brazil and the United States, according to Brazil’s Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota.

“If the implications of this challenge are not satisfactorily resolved, they run the risk of casting a shadow of mistrust over our work,” Patriota told reporters after talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Brasilia.

Relations between the two countries were strained when Brazilian daily O Globo published US spying reports in July. Brazil has said it is not yet satisfied by the American explanations on the issue.

“Practices which harm the sovereignty and relations of trust between states and violate the individual freedoms which our countries so cherish must be stopped,” Patriota said.

The US secretary of state responded by saying “Brazil is owed answers and will get them”, but gave no indication that the US would change the way it gathers such information.

“We will have this dialogue with the view to make it certain that your government is in complete understanding and complete agreement with what it is that we must to do provide security, not just for Americans, but for Brazilians and the people of the world,” said Kerry.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff had earlier conveyed deep reservations about the NSA surveillance of emails and telephone records of Brazilian citizens and firms.

“The privacy of citizens and the sovereignty of countries cannot be infringed in the name of security,” President Rousseff said in July.

The two foreign ministers also discussed Rousseff’s scheduled state visit to the United States in October.

Source: Agencies