Update: Saudia Arabia says it has not yet joined BRICS
Saudi Arabia is one of five countries that have accepted an invitation to join BRICS, South Africa’s international relations minister Naledi Pandor said.
Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are joining BRICS after being invited last year, Pandor said on Wednesday. Argentina declined the invitation.
Earlier in January, Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia was still considering whether to take up the offer to join the global alliance, consisting of founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and more recent member South Africa.
“The kingdom is a part of many multilateral platforms and multilateral institutions and whenever the kingdom is invited into one of them it goes through a process that is a multi-step process and at the end of it a decision is made,” Faisal Alibrahim, Saudi Arabia’s economy minister, told Reuters.
The report suggested that BRICS membership could complicate Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States.
“While officially joining the group is advantageous for the Kingdom’s economy, it must carefully consider the political implications it may have on its relations with other major powers,” Hesham Alghannam, director general of the Security Research Center at Naif Arab University for Security Sciences said.
“The Kingdom aims to maintain an equal distance from all major powers and, at present, it does not want to send any signals that could be misinterpreted by any party.”
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