JOHANNESBURG: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Sunday (Jul 9) that next month’s BRICS summit, which Vladimir Putin has been invited to attend, will be held in-person despite an arrest warrant on the Russian leader.
South Africa is the current chair of the BRICS, a grouping of heavyweights that also includes Brazil, Russia, India and China to challenge the dominant US and European-led global governance structures.
“The BRICS summit is going ahead and we are finalising our discussions on the format,” Ramaphosa told South African journalists on the sidelines of a conference by the ruling ANC, adding it will be a “physical” meeting.
He did not say if Putin – who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over accusations that Russia unlawfully deported Ukrainian children – would attend or not.
“We are going to have a physical BRICS summit, all of us are committed to having a summit where we will be able to eyeball each other,” he said in response to a question during a briefing broadcast live on local television networks.
“We have not held a physical summit for … almost three years. It’s not going to be virtual,” he stressed.
As a member of the ICC, South Africa would be expected to arrest Putin if he sets foot in the country.
There had been speculation in the local media that Pretoria was considering moving the talks to China, which is not signatory to the Rome Statute, to avoid being put in the position of having to arrest Putin.
The arrest warrant is a diplomatic dilemma for Pretoria, which has been close to the Kremlin since the anti-apartheid struggle years.
South Africa has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it is impartial and prefers dialogue, which it is pushing for.
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