HAVANA, February 19. /TASS/. Russia has not reacted to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's criticism of Israel, but sees the suffering of the people in the Gaza Strip, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at talks with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla.

Earlier, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared the Brazilian president, who compared Israel to Hitler's Germany, persona non grata.

"We respect the opinions that the leader of any country expresses and assume that everyone has the right to his reaction. We did not react to this speech by President Lula, but we see how, regardless of whether someone compares this situation to something else or not, we see how thousands of innocent people are suffering," the Russian minister said.

Celso Amorim, the Brazilian president’s envoy for foreign affairs, has blasted the Israeli move to declare the president a persona non grata as absurd. According to the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, da Lula ordered the ambassador to Tel Aviv to be recalled for consultations amid the standoff over the comments.