MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/. Argentina’s participation in the BRICS association after the presidential elections in that country should be decided by the Argentinian people, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a press conference on the results of the BRICS summit in South Africa on Friday.

"Let electors in each country decide who will be the head and what program a particular politician offers in the electoral campaign. This is their completely internal affair," the senior Russian diplomat said, responding to a question about whether the presidential elections in Argentina in October would influence the country’s accession to BRICS.

Russia does not interfere into the internal affairs of any country, Ryabkov stressed.

Argentinian presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich earlier announced that the Latin American country would not join BRICS, if she won the elections. The presidential poll in Argentina will take place on October 22.

This year, the BRICS summit was held in Johannesburg in South Africa under South Africa’s chairmanship on August 22-24 and was a major meeting of the heads of state and governments of the global south in recent years. The leaders of 54 African states were invited to the summit. The participants in the summit agreed that Argentina, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia would join BRICS from January 1, 2024. A new list of the association’s potential members would be prepared by the next summit.