Russian presidential aide for international affairs, Yury Ushakov has announced that 36 foreign leaders have been invited to attend the BRICS summit in Kazan on October 22-24, 2024.
“Eighteen of them have already confirmed their participation,” he added.
“We have gone to Kazan for an inspection and are generally satisfied with how the city is preparing [for the summit],” Ushakov said.
“Indeed, preparations are serious because the event will be unprecedented in terms of its scale. We have not organized such a large-scale international event in quite a long time.”
Yury Ushakov
According to the Kremlin aide, along with the leaders of the nine member states, invitations were sent to the leaders of the CIS countries, countries holding the presidency in influential regional integration associations in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and southeast Asia, as well as of many countries seeking to become members or collaborate with BRICS.
The group was founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India and China, and when South Africa joined it in 2011, it became known as BRICS. On January 1, 2024, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia became full members of the association.
This year, Russia is chairing the group.
Ushakov noted that this year is very important for Russia’s presidency.
“For the first time, we are presiding over an extended format, which includes not just five but actually nine BRICS countries. We are working on one key task, i.e. a new format for BRICS partner states,” Ushakov noted.
“We have some two months and plan to hold another meeting of the organizing committee. Naturally, we will visit Kazan. I hope we will be 100-percent ready to host this large-scale event.”
Yury Ushakov
Ushakov, who chairs the organizing committee for the BRICS summit in Kazan, said that the committee’s latest meeting took place on August 21 to sum up the results of Russia’s presidency in the past six months.
The Russian presidential aide revealed that more than 60% of scheduled events have been implemented.
“About 140 events were held in 13 Russian cities and abroad,” he stated, adding that the largest of them were the “BRICS Parliamentary Forum, BRICS Interparty Forum, meetings of the BRICS education, sports, and transport ministers, prosecution services, supreme courts chairmen, audit services.”
“The keystone event of our presidency was a meeting of the BRICS foreign ministers and BRICS+ session on its sidelines, which was attended by delegates from countries of the global South and East,” Ushakov said.
“This meeting was held in Nizhny Novgorod on June 10 and 11,” he added.
“We think that the launch of new cooperation formats can be seen as a major achievement of our presidency. Thus, the first meetings of the BRICS transport ministers and chief of geological services, as well as the first BRICS forum on nuclear medicine were organized. Cultural and humanitarian areas of cooperation are also developing.”
Yury Ushakov
Turkey Applies To Join BRICS
Meanwhile, a news agency reported that Turkey has applied to join BRICS several months ago.
It reported that Turkey is trying to strengthen its influence in the world and expand relations with developing countries.
In addition, interest in BRICS arose in connection with the lack of progress in joining the European Union and against the backdrop of disagreements with NATO allies.
The news agency said that the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes that the West is losing its position as the geopolitical center and is interested in developing relations with various players of the multipolar world.
According to the news agency, the issue of expanding the association may be considered at the upcoming BRICS summit, which will be held in Kazan on October 22-24.
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