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Iran’s foreign minister speaks in favor of BRICS expansion

"Our approach to BRICS membership is to strengthen multilateralism," Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said

DUBAI, August 10./TASS/. The expansion of BRICS will strengthen this bloc, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian opined following a meeting of the joint commission on South Africa-Iran cooperation at the foreign ministerial level in Pretoria.

"We welcome the membership of different countries to maximize the strength of BRICS," the foreign minister said, quoted by Iran's Fars news agency. "Our approach to BRICS membership is to strengthen multilateralism. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Indonesia, as well as many countries that have expressed interest in joining BRICS along with Iran, are friends of the Islamic republic," he noted.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on May 2 that after joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Tehran had decided to apply for BRICS membership and was preparing to join it. At a meeting in Cape Town in southwestern South Africa on June 1, BRICS foreign ministers mulled the idea of expanding the group, but decided to review the document. The following day, a meeting of the "Friends of BRICS" was held, which was attended by the foreign ministers of the BRICS member countries and 12 other states of the Global South, which expressed their wish to join the bloc.

Johannesburg will host the BRICS summit on August 22-24, to be chaired by South Africa. According to South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor, BRICS leaders will discuss the expansion of the organization. She said 23 countries had submitted formal applications to join BRICS.

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