Fresh off a visit to China, which is also a member of BRICS, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will travel to Russia on Monday for a two-day visit that includes a meeting of foreign ministers of the BRICS and other countries also known as BRICS+. Turkish diplomatic sources said Fidan will attend the meeting in the city of Nizhny Novgorod on Tuesday and hold talks with Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Discussions at the meetings will focus on regional and international issues, including recent developments in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Libya and the South Caucasus. Fidan will reiterate Türkiye's expectation for a peaceful end to the ongoing wars in its region as soon as possible, as well as its willingness to provide support in this direction, the sources said.
Economic and trade cooperation is also on the agenda, including efforts to increase mutual investments and reach a $100 billion trade volume target, set by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the visit, Fidan is also expected to meet with Turkish business representatives operating in Russia.
Tuesday's meeting will be addressing issues of international security, sustainable development and global governance, with BRICS inviting 15 non-member countries to attend, Türkiye, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Algeria, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Laos, Mauritania, Nigeria, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Vietnam. Fidan is also expected hold bilateral meetings with counterparts from other countries on the sidelines of the meeting.
President Erdoğan had also participated in the 10th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg in 2018.
Russia assumed the chairmanship of BRICS from South Africa as of Jan. 1, adopting the theme, "Strengthening multilateralism for fair global development and security." The 16th BRICS summit is planned to be held in Kazan on Oct. 22-24.
Russia last week welcomed Türkiye's reported interest in joining the BRICS economic bloc, the Kremlin spokesperson said on Tuesday, saying the subject would be on the agenda of the organization's next summit.
"We, of course, all welcome the increased interest in BRICS on the part of our neighbors, including such important partners as Türkiye,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a press briefing in Moscow.
Expressing that Türkiye's interest in the bloc will be on the agenda of the BRICS summit to be chaired by Russia, Peskov said the organization is unlikely to fully satisfy the interest of all countries wishing to join. "But BRICS is interested in maintaining contacts with all interested states. For this purpose, various formats for maintaining contacts are now being thought through. This is a process extended over time. But we welcome such keen interest,” he added.
On Monday, Fidan began visiting Beijing, the highest-level visit by a Turkish official to BRICS member China since 2012. Fidan held talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and other officials during the visit. When asked whether Türkiye would want to join BRICS during a talk at the Center for China and Globalization on Monday, Fidan said, "We would like to, of course; why would we not?," a report from Reuters indicated. However, he did not elaborate further. Anadolu Agency (AA) quoted Fidan as saying that while Türkiye was in a customs union with Brussels, it was also exploring new opportunities for cooperation with several partners in different platforms, such as BRICS, and that he would attend a planned meeting of the group next week in Russia.
It was not immediately clear whether Ankara would take steps to join the BRICS group, as Ankara has not previously stated its desire to formally join.
BRICS is a bloc of emerging economies, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and recently admitted Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as full members.
