BRASILIA, Brazil, May 11 (UPI) -- South American and Arab nations ended an historic summit Wednesday with a declaration calling for greater economic cooperation and an end to terror.
Talks ranged from the war in Iraq to ways to increase trade and combat poverty. At its conclusion, the participating nations issued a declaration outlining their shared goals for commerce and support for one another's political objectives.
The summit was not quite the harmonization of individual ideals into a common goal that its architect, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, envisioned when he proposed the summit during a 2003 visit to the Middle East.
Lula has been a strong proponent of reaching out to fellow developing countries in the hope of establishing new trade ties and lessening dependence on wealthy nations.
For most of the two-day meeting, South American representatives were most concerned with ways of augmenting trade relations with Arab nations, but the Arab representatives focused on criticizing U.S. and Israeli policy in the Middle East.
