Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 77, said Tuesday he would undergo hip surgery to relieve pain that was putting him "in a bad mood."
"It's a very simple procedure," he announced on Twitter, rebranded "X," without specifying details of the ailment for which he would go under the knife "in the next few months."
"The pain puts me in a bad mood and I want to stay in a good mood, because I made a commitment to make Brazil work," said the leftist leader who took office on January 1.
Lula has two busy months ahead, meaning the operation may have to wait a short time.
In August, he is scheduled to receive the leaders of Amazon countries in Belem, before heading to South Africa for a BRICS summit.
In September, he will attend a G20 summit in India, then a UN General Assembly meeting in New York.
In March, the president had to postpone an official visit to China as he recovered from pneumonia.
And last November, shortly after his election victory over far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, Lula had surgery to remove a lesion from his vocal cords.
The ex-metalworker was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2011, soon after leaving the presidency after serving two successive terms. He went into remission after treatment.
rsr/lg/tmo/sba/mlr/bgs
