(MENAFN) Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has criticized NATO for intensifying a worldwide arms race by advocating substantial rises in defense budgets.

Last month, the US-led military alliance approved a plan to boost its defense expenditure target from 2 percent to 5 percent of GDP.

Addressing the opening of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, Lula highlighted that the world is currently facing an unprecedented number of armed conflicts since World War II.

He cautioned that NATO’s strategies are worsening the global security climate.

“NATO’s recent decision [to raise military spending to 5% of GDP] is fueling an arms race,” Lula remarked. The Brazilian president also pointed out that “it has become much easier to invest in maintaining wars than to invest in achieving peace,” referencing earlier Western commitments to allocate 0.7 percent of GDP to assist developing nations.

Though not yet officially adopted, the NATO proposal has received support from Secretary-General Mark Rutte and various member countries, including the United States and Poland.

Several Western officials have defended the hike in military budgets as a necessary measure against what they describe as an increasing threat posed by Russia.

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