Turkey seeks to join the BRICS economic bloc, which includes Russia
2024-09-03 20:17:19
TiranaPost
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accepted the Kremlin's invitation to attend the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan next month, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Tuesday.
Ushakov's statement came a day after Bloomberg reported that Turkey had applied for membership in the BRICS economic bloc. According to the newspaper, Ankara submitted a request to join the group "several months ago", partly prompted by "rifts" between Turkey and the rest of NATO over the conflict in Ukraine.
If true, Turkey would be the first NATO country to seek membership in the non-Western BRICS group. In June, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced that Turkey intended to join the bloc, before discussing the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Since the term was first coined in 2001, BRICS has grown from an acronym to an informal alliance that has surpassed the US-led G7 bloc in its share of global GDP, has its own development bank and expanded from four members – Brazil, Russia, India and China – to nine, including South Africa, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
