Türkiye, Erdogan’s surprise move to join BRICS –

Turkey confirms its intention to join the BRICS group and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accepted the invitation of the Russian government to participate in the next summit of the group, scheduled to be held in Russia. The news bounced around the Turkish media after being initially spread in Russia by Yury Usakov, a close advisor to the Kremlin, who specified that the Turkish president will travel to the city of Kazan, in the Russian region of Tatarstan, for the summit scheduled for October 22-24. Only yesterday, however, the Bloomberg agency had reported, citing sources in Ankara, that Turkey has submitted an application to join BRICS. A news that was confirmed by government spokesman Omer Celik today.

In reality, this is a move that has been in the air for a few months, aimed at expanding Ankara’s radius of action towards the East and expanding Turkey’s global influence. On June 10, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan took part in the work of the summit of foreign ministers of emerging countries as a guest, again at the invitation of Russia. At the beginning of 2024, the group presented an ambitious enlargement plan, inviting Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join the organization. A few weeks ago, Palestine also applied for membership.