Brazil’s foreign ministry on Thursday summoned Argentina’s top diplomat in Brasília over how Flávio Bolsonaro, Brazil’s defeated presidential candidate, left the country through Argentina.
Brazilian officials described the summons as a routine step to gather information, including on whether Argentine officials played a role, and not as a reprimand. Argentina’s foreign minister, Pablo Quirno, wrote on X on Friday that Brazil made no request for explanations.
FALSO. No hubo ningún pedido de explicaciones. No tomen dictado de una sola fuente (e interesada claramente).
Translation: "False. There was no request for explanations. Don't take dictation from a single source (and clearly an interested one)."
María Emilia Cortés, the chargé d’affaires who runs Argentina’s embassy while it has no ambassador, met for a few minutes at Itamaraty, as Brazil’s foreign ministry is known, with Ambassador João Marcelo Galvão de Queiroz, a department head, rather than with the ministry’s senior leadership. Argentina’s Foreign Ministry told La Nación that Cortés repeated the government’s earlier position on Bolsonaro’s entry and that Brazilian officials never asked about any role of Argentine officials.
Bolsonaro, a senator and the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, lost Brazil’s October 25 run-off to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. A Brazilian Supreme Court order required him to surrender his passports and barred him from leaving the country. Argentina’s immigration agency confirmed on Wednesday that he crossed from Brazil into Puerto Iguazú, in Misiones province, at 10:50 p.m. Tuesday with valid documents and then boarded a private jet. It flew via Ecuador and landed near Miami.
In Buenos Aires, a federal judge has opened a preliminary inquiry into whether Argentine officials helped him and ordered border and airport footage preserved.
Brazil is Argentina’s largest trading partner, and the two governments have run their embassies at chargé d’affaires level since August. Brazil recalled its ambassador, Julio Bitelli, in July after President Milei’s attacks on Lula, then downgraded relations on August 4 after further attacks. Argentina’s ambassador, Daniel Raimondi, left Brasília that month. Brazilian officials expect no change in that arrangement soon.
Quirno and his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, are both attending the foreign ministers’ meeting of the Group of 20 major economies (G20) that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting in Atlanta through Saturday. Brazilian officials say Brazil is also weighing a ministerial-level diplomatic note, depending on what Brazil’s Federal Police investigation finds, and that Vieira could raise the matter with Quirno there.