00:00We have been following the 18th BRICS Leaders Summit that is currently on the
00:04way in New Delhi, India. On Saturday the member states adopted the New Delhi
00:08Decoration, the first day of sessions of the leaders meeting. Leaders are
00:13also addressing issues of global interest and expand their cooperation
00:17partnerships. For more information on this we are going live to India. We are
00:21Special Envoy Junu Sonner for Odetitos. Welcome once more.
00:27Hello, good evening from here from New Delhi, capital of India, where the BRICS
00:33Summit State has started today on this Saturday the meeting of the heads of
00:39state or head of government of the members of the Alliance who both in
00:45their speeches as in their final declaration and also later on
00:51practically challenged the existing order, the idea of unipolarism and
01:00unilateralism. In the words of the Prime Minister of India, Rendra Modi, who opened
01:07the session of their meeting at 2.30 in the afternoon, local time, he said that the
01:15world's political system is like a pyramid with a few on the top taking the
01:22decisions and below all the others obeying them and this had to change. Modi said the
01:29global south had to change from those who follow the rules to those who shape the
01:39rules. And in concretely he and the start declaration demanded an immediate reform to the UN
01:47starting with the UN Security Council with a major representative to global south in that organ as well
01:56as in the General Assembly and in UN related organizations as well. But they didn't stop there. The final
02:04declaration also demanded a major a better representation of the global south in other international
02:12institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank arguing that the global south's economic weight in the
02:21global economy had grown and needed better representation there. IMF quotas were on the agenda of the final
02:28declaration agreed upon by the members of the BRICS alliance and they also criticized other issues very
02:38common in this unilateral thought such as sanctions and threats and tariffs. These were rejected by a number
02:48of presidents speaking in the reunion of the the presidents of the BRICS alliance among them the Russian
02:55president Vladimir Putin and of course the Iranian president Massoud Pazeshki and both countries targeted
03:02fiercely by mainly U.S. sanctions but also other leaders such as Xi Jinping criticized the imposition of production
03:12and pardon excuse me protectionism and the imposition of tariff barriers on the global trade which were rejected
03:24also in the final declaration. The BRICS alliance instead proposed in the final declaration opening up the economy opening up
03:35and strengthening the multilateral institutions and removing trade barriers also between the BRICS countries but also on the global
03:45global scale that was a clear demand. A critical issue was how the alliance was going to position itself regarding
03:53the U.S.
03:54attack against Iran because Iran is a BRICS member but so are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
04:02in that conflict more let's say tending towards the American side with their territory being used by American
04:11U.S. American forces to attack Iran. So that was a crucial difficult issue for the BRICS to resolve.
04:21Their compromise was to address the issue without naming it, address the aggression without naming it.
04:30Concretely in the final declaration they called to protect civilian architecture, they called to refrain from escalating the war,
04:38they called to refrain from attacking nuclear facilities as the U.S. and Israel had done in Iran but they
04:46did not
04:47criticize explicitly the United States, they also did not explicitly speak of the war itself. Instead they called to return
04:57to diplomacy
04:58and here they took an active position and here they took an active position. What happened here on the summit
05:03was a meeting, a bilateral meeting between the Iranian President
05:08Mesut Pezeshkian and his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. So two opposing parts
05:20met here on the summit and had a talk together bilaterally
05:24organized by the Indian Presidency with possible support from the rest of the BRICS members. Among them are not only
05:33China,
05:33but also Egypt and as I mentioned Saudi Arabia. Some here say that BRICS will take a bigger initiative in
05:41resolving that dispute around Hormuz.
05:44That's an argument that was also an announcement that was made by no one less than the President of the
05:53People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, who said that BRICS countries will take more initiative in achieving peace and stability
06:03in West Asia.
06:04After that, Bin Zayed left New Delhi to return to the United Arab Emirates. But this is a noteworthy meeting
06:15that occurred here where the BRICS Alliance, already famous for getting together opposing parties, has taken a concrete step in
06:26mediating a reunion between these two countries.
06:29But it remains to be seen what results it will bear on the ground regarding the U.S. attack on
06:36the Islamic Republic of Iran.
06:39In summary, we can say that the BRICS summit has challenged the unilateral idea, the idea of unilateralism, the idea
06:47of unipolarism, without verbally attacking the U.S. or without verbally attacking the West.
06:55Quite the opposite, both Narendra Modi and the Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized that BRICS is not part of a
07:04bloc confrontation, is not anti-Western alliance.
07:08But practically, they are gaining more strength in regards to international institutions, United Nations, IMF, World Bank, there is a
07:26growing demand of the Global South to make their voice better heard in a world that they insist has become
07:34multipolar.
07:34And they want this reality to be reflected in these institutions and in the minds of the countries who once
07:43had founded them.
Comments