SÃO PAULO — Chile formally recognized an independent state of Palestine on Friday, becoming the seventh South American country to take such a step in the past month.
The government of President Sebastián Piñera had been under growing pressure from the nation’s large Palestinian population, more than 300,000, to recognize a Palestinian state. But the fact that so many countries in Latin America have done so at the same time underscores the unwillingness in the region to wait until Israel and the Palestinians resolve their disputes over territory and other issues, political analysts said.
The decisions by Latin American governments come in response to an effort by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to seek such recognition following the breakdown in negotiations.
It was the announcement by Brazil on Dec. 3 that seemed to inspire other countries in the region to follow suit. Brazil’s president at the time, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who left office last week, had tried to insert his nation into the Middle East peace negotiations and had forged warm relations with Iran, creating tensions with the United States.
“Brazil’s role in this process is fundamental,” said Michael Shifter, the president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “To some degree, other South American governments are following Brazil’s lead.”
In addition to Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela have all announced support for a Palestinian state. Paraguay and Peru are expected to offer recognition soon, said Eugenio Tuma, a senator in Chile who pushed for the measure.
“South American countries are acting every day with greater coordination,” Mr. Tuma said Friday. With the move by Chile’s government, he said, “we are demonstrating that South America can play, together, a role in the great global issues affecting humanity.”
The Chilean senator did not comment on whether Brazil had been coordinating the wave of recognitions, saying only that the region was taking a “common view” about the “need to contribute to the peace process, despite the distance that separates us from the Middle East.”
Analysts said it was difficult to interpret Latin America’s recognition of a Palestinian state along strictly ideological lines, or even according to how countries viewed the United States. Argentina, with Latin America’s largest Jewish population, suffered terrorist attacks in the 1990s and has adopted a tough stance on Iran. Yet it made the same decision as Brazil on the Palestinian question.
Economic factors could also be playing a role, with Latin American countries betting that recognition of a Palestinian state would draw more foreign investment to the region, Mr. Shifter said. Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s new president, is scheduled to attend an Arab-Latin America summit on Feb. 16 in Lima, Peru. Mr. da Silva hosted the first such summit in Brasília in 2005.
Under Mr. da Silva, Brazil made more inroads into the Middle East than its neighbors have in recent years, sometimes at odds with American policy initiatives in the region. Last year, Brazil and Turkey helped negotiate a deal with Iran on its nuclear power program to try to head off more United Nations sanctions, an effort Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called a “transparent ploy” by Iran.
Ms. Rousseff has already indicated that she will “cool off the relationship with Iran,” said David Fleischer, a political science professor at Brasília University. But the closer relationship with the Arab world continues. Mr. Abbas attended Ms. Rousseff’s inauguration last week in Brasília.
Mr. Piñera met with Mr. Abbas there as well, and he plans on visiting the West Bank in March to “strengthen the ties of friendship between Chile and the states of Israel and Palestine,” the Chilean government said in a statement.
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