- Türkiye will seek to join the BRICS group of nations: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan
- Fidan will attend the China-led BRICS+ meeting in Russia next week to explore new cooperation opportunities
- Ankara is now considering BRICS as an alternative platform for regional integration
- Russia welcomes Turkey’s reported desire to become part of the BRICS group of nations
- Türkiye has long been waiting to become a member of the European Union
By: Muhammad Arif
Istanbul: Türkiye will seek to join the BRICS group of nations and intends to bring up the issue at an upcoming meeting of the economic bloc’s foreign-ministers in Russia, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced on Tuesday while talking to reporters while on a three-day visit to China.
foreign-minister Fidan arrived in Beijing for a three-day official visit and was received by Han Zheng, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CCP) Central Committee and vice president. Also, he met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to discuss bilateral relations, as well as current regional and international issues.
“Türkiye has long been waiting to become a member of the European Union, but has for years faced opposition from some of that bloc’s members. In this context, Ankara is now considering BRICS as an alternative platform for integration”, Fidan explained.
“While we have a customs union with the EU, we also explore new opportunities for cooperation with several partners in different platforms such as BRICS,” Fidan said in Beijing on Monday. “I look forward to attending the BRICS+ meeting in Russia next week.”
”We cannot ignore the fact that BRICS, as an important cooperation platform, offers some other countries a good alternative,” Fidan said, noting that while the group still has “a long way to go,” Ankara sees the “potential in BRICS”, he added.
During an event at the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) in Beijing, Fidan said he was looking forward to attending the meeting of group’s foreign ministers, which will include representatives from Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The event is set to take place next week in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.
Russia has welcomed Türkiye’s interest in joining BRICS. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated that the topic of Türkiye’s membership in the group will be featured on the agenda of next week’s summit, which this year is being chaired by Russia.
Peskov noted, however, that the economic bloc may not be able to fully satisfy the interests of all the numerous countries that have expressed a desire to join BRICS. Nevertheless, he stated that “such an active interest” is welcomed and that the group will do everything within its power to maintain contact with all interested nations.
Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also noted that the doors of BRICS are open to the representatives of the most “diverse economic and political systems and macro-regions.”
The only condition to join the group is a commitment to work on the basis of the key principle of the sovereign equality of states – something Russia’s Western colleagues appear to be struggling with, Lavrov commented.
BRICS+, an economic bloc comprising China, Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran, is expected to have a foreign ministers meeting in Western Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod next week.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had expressed his desire to join the bloc in 2018, but has not repeated the suggestion since then.
