FS BRICS Summit on October 22 in Russia
Twenty-four foreign leaders and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are expected to attend the BRICS summit in Russia from October 22 to 24, the Kremlin announced on Thursday.
Invitations to the summit, which will be held in Kazan (Volga), “have been sent to 38 countries. Thirty-two of them have already confirmed their participation, 24 of which will be represented by their leaders,” Kremlin diplomatic adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
According to him, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also attend the summit, his first trip to Russia since April 2022, following the launch of the Russian offensive against Ukraine in February this year. year.
According to Yuri Ushakov, eight other countries will be represented by their number two or three.
All BRICS member countries will be represented by their leaders, except Saudi Arabia, a global energy heavyweight, which will send its chief diplomat, Ushakov said.
The head of the New Development Bank, Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, will also be present, according to Ushakov.
According to Ushakov, “the summit in Kazan could become the most important diplomatic event ever held in Russia,” at a time when it is targeted by heavy international sanctions and its relations with the West are at an all-time low due to the attack on Ukraine.
On the sidelines of the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to hold bilateral meetings with around 20 of his foreign counterparts, according to the same source.
Among the leaders expected in Kazan are Chinese President Xi Jinping, a close ally of Mr Putin, Iranian leader Massoud Pezeshkian, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has requested his country's membership in the BRICS bloc, and Belarusian Alexander Lukashenko, a staunch supporter of Moscow.
“The title BRICS sounds like the English word 'brick',” Mr Ushakov recalled.
“And the BRICS are building a bridge to a global order, brick by brick, fairer,” he said, emphasizing the “multipolar” nature of the group that brings together “the global South and the East,” to counterbalance, according to Moscow, Western hegemony and the United States.
This big BRICS gathering will also take place two weeks before the American presidential election (November 5), with an uncertain outcome between the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and the Republican Donald Trump.
With four members (Brazil, China, India and Russia) when it was created in 2009, the BRICS bloc was joined by South Africa in 2010 and expanded this year to include several other emerging countries, including Egypt and Iran, another partner state of Russia.
Turkey, a member of NATO but with sometimes strained relations with its Western allies, announced in early September that it had submitted an application to join the bloc.
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