CAPE TOWN: Once viewed as a loose association of disparate emerging economies, BRICS has in recent years taken more concrete shape, driven initially by China and, since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022, with added impetus from Russia.
Senior officials from more than a dozen countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, were in talks on forging closer links with the BRICS bloc of major emerging economies on Friday as it met to deepen ties and position itself as a counterweight to the West.
BRICS, which now consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is considering expanding its membership, and a growing number of countries have expressed interest in joining.
The Brics is seen by some as an alternative to the G7 group of developed nations, which held its annual summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima last month, and was also attended by the leaders of Brazil and India. G7 members have been highly critical of Russia and China.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan also attended the ministerial meeting of the BRICS nations on Thursday and held bilateral meetings on Friday.
Prince Faisal held meetings with South African counterpart Naledi Pandor, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Sheikh Abdullah also met with Jaishankar, Pandor and Lavrov. The UAE’s top diplomat held a bilateral meeting with his Iranian counterpart as well.
Brics countries have a combined population of more than 3.2 billion people, making up about 40% of the world’s roughly 8 billion people.
On the first of two days of talks in Cape Town, Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the gathering must “send out a strong message that the world is multipolar, that it is rebalancing and that old ways cannot address new situations”.
“At the heart of the problems we face is economic concentration that leaves too many nations at the mercy of too few,” he said.
In his address at the “Friends of BRICS Foreign Ministers” meeting in Cape Town, he stated: “BRICS is not only an expression of multipolarity but of the many and diverse ways of meeting international challenges.”
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira also described the Brics as an “indispensable mechanism for building a multipolar world order that reflects the devices and needs of developing countries”.
While Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said the Brics group could be expanded to provide assistance to developing countries and emerging market economies.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “more than a dozen” countries including Saudi Arabia had expressed interest in joining the group.
FMs Sergey Lavrov also met Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on the sidelines of the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting in Cape Town. The Ministers exchanged views on current international & regional issues, including prospects for resuming the JCPOA.
🇷🇺🇮🇷 On June 2, FMs Sergey Lavrov & @Amirabdolahian met on the sidelines of the #BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting in Cape Town.
The Ministers exchanged views on current international & regional issues, including prospects for resuming the #JCPOA.
🔗 https://t.co/qX8pVWr2XF pic.twitter.com/PFrHCBVyxp
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) June 2, 2023
At the end, all the ministers also reiterated their commitment to strengthening multilateralism and upholding international law, including the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.
The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the framework of BRICS cooperation under the three pillars of political and security, economic and financial, and cultural and people-to-people cooperation upholding the bloc’s spirit featuring mutual respect and understanding, equality, solidarity, openness, inclusiveness, and consensus.
They reaffirmed their national and joint efforts to promote the implementation of the Paris Agreement and stressed the importance of the fulfilment by developed countries of their commitments to provide technology and adequate, predictable, timely, new and additional climate finance that is long overdue to assist developing countries to address climate change.
The five-nation grouping BRICS brings together five of the largest developing countries of the world, representing 41 per cent of the global population, 24 per cent of the global GDP and 16 per cent of the global trade.
-Dr. M Shahid Siddiqui (PhD), Follow via Twitter @shahidsiddiqui
