Prime Minister Narendra Modi is chairing the annual summit of the BRICS virtually today and the five nations have resolved to adopt the BRICS counter-terrorism plan. This is key given the Taliban’s hostile takeover of Afghanistan posing several security challeneges to the region.
“Afghanistan should not become a threat to its neighbouring countries, a source of drug trafficking and terrorism,” PM Modi said at the meet.
The citizens of Afghanistan, he added, have “fought for decades and deserve to exercise their rights of defining of what their state will look like on their own”.
“The theme that India has chosen for its presidency reflects this priority – “BRICS at 15: Intra-BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus”,” PM Modi said in his opening address.
The meeting was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
“BRICS has made many achievements in the last one and a half decades. Today we are an influential voice for the emerging economies of the world. This platform has also been useful for focusing on the priorities of developing countries,” he said.
Was delighted to host the virtual #BRICS Summit in the 15th year of BRICS. BRICS has taken many new initiatives during India’s Chairship. Called for BRICS to contribute to post-COVID global recovery on the motto ‘Build-back Resiliently, Innovatively, Credibly, and Sustainably’.— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 9, 2021
On Afghanistan, the five leaders called for refraining from violence and settling the situation by peaceful means, through an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue so as to ensure stability, civil peace, law and order in the country. They underscored the priority of fighting terrorism, including preventing attempts by terrorist organisations to use Afghan territory as terrorist sanctuary and to carry out attacks against other countries. They emphasised the need to address the humanitarian situation and to uphold human rights, including those of women, children and minorities.
The BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) brings together five of the largest developing countries of the world, representing 41 percent of the global population, 24 percent of the global GDP and 16 percent of the global trade.
This is the second time Prime Minister Modi will be chairing the BRICS summit. Earlier he had chaired the Goa summit in 2016. The Indian Chairship of BRICS this year coincides with the 15th anniversary of BRICS.
The theme for the summit is: ‘BRICS@15: Intra-BRICS cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus’. India had outlined four priority areas for its Chairship. These are reform of the multilateral system, counter-terrorism, using digital and technological tools for achieving SDGs and enhancing people-to-people exchanges.
Separately, Russian Ambassador to India Nikolay Kudashev had said the situation in Afghanistan is expected to figure prominently at the summit.
The MEA said that NSA Ajit Doval, President of the New Development Bank Marcos Troyjo, the ‘pro tempore’ Chair of the BRICS Business Council Onkar Kanwar and ‘pro tempore’ Chair of the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance Sangita Reddy will present reports on the outcomes pursued this year under their respective tracks to the leaders during the Summit.
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