MOSCOW, August 27. /TASS/. BRICS will consolidate its positions in the Group of Twenty after admitting new members, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday.
"Naturally, the expanded BRICS’ positions in the Group of Twenty will strengthen because both Saudi Arabia and Argentina are its members. So, the formal division of the Group of Twenty into the G7+ and BRICS+ is taking a practical shape," he said in an interview with the Mosow.Kremlin.Putin program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.
The BRICS summit was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 22 to 24, 2023 and was chaired by South Africa. With the leaders of 54 African nations invited, this was the biggest meeting of the heads of state and government of the Global South in recent years. Participants in the summit agreed that Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will join the association from January 1, 2024. A new list of possible members will be compiled by the next BRICS summit. According to South Africa’s Ambassador at Large for Asia and BRICS Affairs and BRICS Sherpa Anil Sooklal, around 30 countries are interested in joining the association and some of them have officially applied for membership.