By Chris Muhizi for MCN Friday June 30th/2023.
South Africa said on Thursday that it will host the BRICS summit in August as planned, this comes after speculations over its move to China so that the Russian president Vladimir Putin would attend the summit in person since the release of arrest warrant for Putin by the ICC.
Because of an arrest order related to the expulsion of children from Ukraine, South Africa, as a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC), has a responsibility to detain Putin if he attends the discussions with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
The Department of International Relations released a statement saying that South Africa would host the 15th BRICS Summit from August 22–24, 2023, at the Sandton Convention Center in Sandton, Johannesburg.
The BRICS nations were reportedly considering shifting the summit to China, which is not a member of the international court, according to South African authorities at the end of last month. They might yet opt to switch the location right before the event.
Putin has not yet responded to an invitation that was made before the ICC indicted him on March 18, according to South Africa’s Minister of International Relations, Naledi Pandor, who stated this on Tuesday.
According to Pandor, the leaders of China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva all want to attend.
For the 15th BRICS Summit, which will take place in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24, the South African government began accepting applications for media credentials on Thursday.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation stated in a statement that the summit would be hosted at the Sandton Convention Center in Johannesburg and that the deadline for media accreditation is Aug. 11 and that it will not be extended.
The subject of the summit will be “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism,” according to the statement.