- Friday, May 17, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
PAKISTAN on Monday (27) alleged that one of the members of the five-nation BRICS grouping blocked its participation in a meeting which was hosted by China on the sidelines of the bloc’s summit last week.
India, one of Pakistan’s arch-rivals, is a member of the bloc which also includes Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa (the BRICS acronym draws its name from the first letter of the member nations). Pakistan though did not name of the member which allegedly stopped its participation.
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Though Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar did not name the country that allegedly blocked Islamabad’s participation in a high-level dialogue on global development on June 24, media reports in the country cited sources as saying that it was New Delhi, the Hindustan Times reported.
“China being the host country engaged with Pakistan prior to the Brics meetings, where decisions are taken after consultations with all Brics members, including extending an invitation to non-members,” Iftikhar said in a statement.
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“Regrettably, one member blocked Pakistan’s participation.”
Besides the five regular members, the 14th summit of the BRICS also saw participation from 13 nations, which was seen as a push by Beijing to expand the grouping. The countries that were invited by Beijing to what is being called as ‘BRICS-plus’ meeting were Algeria, Argentina, Cambodia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Senegal, Thailand and Uzbekistan.
While no immediate response was available from Indian officials over Pakistan’s allegation, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told the Associated Press of Pakistan at a news briefing on Monday that the decision to hold the high-level meeting was “based on consultation among BRICS countries”. He did not elaborate any further.
He however said, “China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners. Pakistan is an important member of the group of friends of the Global Development Initiative.”
Iftikhar expressed hope that the BRICS’s future engagements will be “based on the principles of inclusivity keeping in view the overall interests of the developing world and in a manner that is devoid of narrow geopolitical considerations”.
