South Africa’s top diplomat in charge of relations with the BRICS bloc said this week that besides the 22 countries that had formally asked to join, an equal number of countries had informally expressed interest in becoming BRICS members … ‘(including) all the major global south countries’.
Senior diplomat Anil Sooklal was speaking at a media briefing on the news that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not be attending the BRICS summit in South Africa next month.
Reuters reports that the question of how far and fast to expand the club is top of the agenda at the summit of nations seeking to counter the perceived hegemony of the US-led West in global affairs.
According to Reuters, officials said South Africa wanted BRICS to become a champion of the developing world, and that Argentina, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, Gabon, and Kazakhstan had all expressed an interest in joining.
Diplomats at this week’s briefing said that South Africa’s position on the Ukraine war had been vindicated by the country’s being accepted by both sides as a mediator in the conflict.
[Image: Pete Linforth from Pixabay]