Saudi Arabia and Iran among six new countries to join BRICS bloc

Africa, Middle East, News August 25, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

The three-day-long BRICS Summit 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa, was dominated by the talks of expansion. Among 23 countries that applied for membership, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates have been invited to join the bloc.

On the final day of the BRICS Summit on August 24, 2023, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that all existing members of the blocs have agreed to expand the group by inviting six new members to join by January 2024.

Ramaphosa said that the decision has been taken by consensus, and was agreed upon by all member states based on “the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures of the BRICS expansion process.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa hosted China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Modi, Brazil’s Lula da Silva, and some 50 other leaders and diplomats in Johannesburg for the BRICS Summit 2023. Leaders of the emerging economies gathered to discuss the bloc’s future and expansion.

China’s President Xi Jinping hailed the decision by saying “This membership expansion is historic.” He added that “the expansion is also a new starting point for BRICS cooperation. It will bring new vigor to the BRICS cooperation mechanism and further strengthen the force for world peace and development.”

On the first day of the summit, South African officials said that around 40 countries expressed a desire to join the bloc including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Bangladesh, and Egypt.

^{Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian welcomes Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Tehran, Iran, on June 17, 2023. (Image Credit: Majid Asgaripour/WANA/via Reuters)}

A senior adviser to Iran’s president Mohammad Jamshidi was also present during the summit. He wrote on Twitter that “Permanent membership in the group of global emerging economies is considered a historic development and a strategic success for the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic.”

“We look forward to develop this cooperation to create new developmental and economic opportunities and elevate our relationship to the aspired level,” Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan during the summit.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also welcomed the BRICS decision and called it “a great moment” for his country. “Ethiopia stands ready to cooperate with all for an inclusive and prosperous global order,” Abiy said on Twitter.

The BRICS group was founded by Brazil, Russia, India, and China in 2009. South Africa was added to the group in 2010. The founding members of the group account for 40% of the world’s population and more than 30% of global economic output. The bloc is mainly focused on increasing economic cooperation between the emerging economies of the world

The expansion of the group indicates its efforts to establish political and economic dominance to reshape the global world order. Several analysts and observers have compared BRICS to other economic-oriented blocs, such as G20, and G7, however, a separate opinion about the group says that it has deviated from the original cause of economic cooperation and become a politically motivated group aimed at changing the existing world order.