Bush and Chavez urged to talk it out

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says the idea may be far-fetched, but he’d like to get US President George W. Bush and ardent US critic Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to sit down together and talk out their differences.

“I told President Bush that, before my term of office ends, I want to see him and Chavez seated at the same table to discuss their differences,” Silva told The Economist in an interview published yesterday on the magazine’s website.

Relations between Venezuela, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter, and the US have gradually deteriorated, leading to the recent expulsion of diplomats from each country and threats by Caracas to cut oil shipments to the US

Silva’s conversation with Bush took place during the US president’s visit to Brasilia in November.

“One day, President Bush and President Chavez must talk,” Silva said in the interview. “You may think I’m a dreamer here, but I really believe this is possible.”

The US is Venezuela’s top oil market; Venezuela supplied 10% of US crude oil imports in November, the most recent data available from Washington.