Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, next month, following Ankara’s reported application for membership in the economic bloc.
Yury Ushakov, a presidential aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, confirmed on Tuesday that Erdogan had accepted the Kremlin’s invitation to the summit. “The proposal was conveyed to the Turkish side, [and] Erdogan accepted it,” Ushakov told the Interfax news agency.
This comes after Bloomberg reported on Monday that Türkiye had applied for BRICS membership. The outlet claimed that Ankara submitted its application “some months ago,” citing “rifts” between Türkiye and other NATO members over the Ukraine conflict as a partial motivator.
Omer Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan’s ruling AK party, confirmed on Tuesday that the application process is “ongoing.” Celik didn’t specify when Türkiye submitted its application, but Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated in June that Ankara intended to join the bloc, before discussing the matter with Putin in Moscow.
Türkiye is the first NATO member state to seek membership in the non-Western BRICS group.
Since its inception in 2001, BRICS has evolved from an acronym to an informal alliance that has surpassed the US-led G7 bloc in its share of global GDP. It has its own development bank and has expanded from four members – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – to nine, including South Africa, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
Erdogan has attended BRICS summits before, but never as a potential member of the bloc. Earlier this year, anonymous Turkish officials told reporters that tensions with the European Union had compelled Ankara to seek new economic partners.
“We don’t see Brics as an alternative to NATO or the EU,” one official said. “However, the stalled accession process to the European Union encourages us to explore other economic platforms.”
The official added that, while NATO’s other 31 member states are “on-paper allies” of Türkiye, they often disregard Ankara’s security concerns and deny it access to the latest military equipment.
“We would like to be part of every multilateral platform, even if there is only a slight chance of benefit to us,” the official explained
As of Tuesday afternoon, Erdogan’s office had not officially confirmed the president’s participation in the Kazan summit. The gathering is scheduled to take place from October 22-24 in the southwestern Russian city.