he first defining moments of the Lula government in international policy was whe n it helped to block the offensive of the

U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would have established a hemisphere-wide free trade zone modeled on NAFTA. A strong cooperation with Africa, particularly with the Portuguese-speaking coun tries, which were completely rejected in terms of foreign policy under Lula s pred ecessor, Brazil was always the privileged ally of the United States, whether it was durin g the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964 85) or during the government of Cardos o. The Lula government abandoned this inferior position, adopting a clearly mult ipolar direction in its foreign policy. The most concrete way of consolidating t his new path was to try to intervene, in the most autonomous and active way, in the definition of agreements or in the resolution of conflicts in which the Nort h American government is involved and whose participation has done nothing but i ntensify conflicts and multiply tensions. strengthen bilateral and multilateral relations in order to increase the countr y's weight in political and economic negotiations on an international level; to deepen relations so as to benefit from greater economical, financial, technologi cal and cultural interchange; to avoid agreements that could jeopardize developm ent in the long term _______________ Q: Is Turkey shifting its axis? Will this affect its traditional Wes tern-oriented foreign policy? Will this affect its traditional Western-oriented foreign policy?