Photo: BGNES/ERA
From today, the BRICS group of five members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and the Republic of South Africa) will now have 10 members, the world agencies reported. Argentina, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were invited to join BRICS at the group’s summit held in August in Johannesburg, South Africa. However, on December 29, Argentina rejected the offer.
This expansion of the BRICS did not come easily. China and Russia have been enthusiastic about expanding the format, once conceived as economic but more recently geostrategic and effectively a counterweight to the G-7 format. India and Brazil were more reserved on the issue of BRICS expansion. The decision to invite the aforementioned countries to join the group was a consensus.
Most of the new members are from the North Africa-Middle East region. Curiously, two of these countries are rivals in the same region and they are Saudi Arabia and Iran. With the mediation of China last year, they improved their relations, but they still have differences on a number of issues.
The BRICS have so far refrained from following the West’s lead in joining Western sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine.
As of today, the rotating chairman of the BRICS is Russia, which will organize the summit of the 10 leaders of the member countries of the group in Kazan on October 16.
This year there will be elections in three of the original BRICS members – presidential and local elections in Russia, general elections in the Republic of South Africa and parliamentary elections in India, the agencies and BTA also remind.
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2024-01-01 06:42:00
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