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Turkey wants to join BRICS, top diplomat says

According to Hakan Fidan, some European countries are against Turkey joining the EU, so the Turkish authorities are considering BRICS as an alternative integration platform

HONG KONG, June 4. /TASS/. Turkey would like to join BRICS and this issue will be discussed at the group’s ministerial meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during his visit to China.

"Certainly, we would like to become a member of BRICS. So we’ll see how it goes this year," the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper quoted him as saying.

According to Fidan, some European countries are against Turkey joining the EU, so the Turkish authorities are considering BRICS as an alternative integration platform. "We cannot ignore the fact that BRICS, as an important cooperation platform, offers some other countries a good alternative," he said. "We see potential in BRICS," the top Turkish diplomat added.

According to the SCMP, Fidan also said that he was hoping to attend the group’s foreign ministers’ meeting in Russia. According to the newspaper, "one of the topics on the agenda is expected to be the possibility of Turkey, a NATO ally, joining the BRICS grouping."

On June 10-11, Nizhny Novgorod will host a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, the event will be held in an expanded format, including non-member partners.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended a BRICS summit in 2018. Russian President Vladimir Putin said then that Ankara could join BRICS in 2022. By now Turkey has not taken any steps in this direction.

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