Cable from Brazilian Foreign Ministry to Embassy in Washington, 'Brazil-France. Science and technology. Visit of D. José Israel Vargas. Meeting with Minister Hubert Curien.'

To: Embassy in Washington                                From: EXTERIORES

CONFIDENTIAL

DPTS/DCTEC/DMAE/DE-I

No. 01C0144  00158

Classification: ETEC-L00-H09

                         ENER-L00-H09

Date: 8/02/93

Brazil-France. Science and technology.

Visit of D. José Israel Vargas. Meeting

with Minister Hubert Curien.

Following are paragraphs 1, 3, 7 and 8 from cable 117, received from the Brazilian Embassy in Paris on 5/02/93.

Add cable 77. Minister José Israel Vargas, accompanied by Minister Celina Assumpção and Counsellor Gilberto Moura, met at the end of the morning the Minister of Science, Technology and Space Hubert Curien.

The meeting with Minister Curien took place in a very relaxed and cordial atmosphere. The Brazilian Minister’s familiarity with the French scientific world permitted the conversation to flow in a harmonious and stimulating tone.

In what regards bilateral cooperation in the field of space, the French side recapitulated the contacts held during the past two years  by Minister Curien with Minister Vargas’s predecessors in the portfolio of science and technology and stressed the importance he attaches to the INOPE-CNES agreement on the observation of Earth. Minister Vargas highlighted our appreciation for space cooperation with France through CNES and ESA, as well as the interest in deepening it and reaffirmed the Brazilian objective of developing national space technology, for which Brazil would like to count on French technological cooperation. The Brazilian Minister mentioned the creation of the Brazilian Space Agency through a draft bill currently being examined in the Congress. Minister Curien said that France has a firm position regarding the transfer of sensitive technologies “due do international commitments”, as shown by the case of India, a country with which a longstanding and important cooperation sometimes clashed with obstacles stemming from those commitments. Alwys within the climate of cordiality that characterized the meeting, Minister Israel Vargas said that that we understand the French position but did not accept it.

Ambassador de la Fortelle, director for International relations of the Atomic nergy Commission and Governor for France at the IAEA, intervened to recall a visit he had made do Argentina last December and to the restart of nuclear cooperation with that country, which will be the matter of an agreement under negotiation by the Quai d’Orsay. He said that CEA wishes to take up again the cooperation with Brazil and to broaden its contacts with CNEN, bur in a mention to the French policy on nuclear non-proliferation he conditioned technical cooperation to the ratification by Brazil of the quadripartite agreement, already accepted by Argentina. Moreover, he reiterated the offer he had made during his contacts with ABACC, in Rio, to support that Agency in the field of the formation of technicians and supply of equipment.

EXTERIORES