Speaking in a radio interview on Saturday, Mehdi Safari pointed to Iran’s request regarding its membership in BRICS and stated, “We are making efforts so that the members of the economic group, including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, will accept Iran’s membership.”
The Iranian foreign minister and secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) attended the recent meetings of the BRICS Group and President Ebrahim Raisi will also attend such meetings in the future, he stated.
Emphasizing that BRICS is an economic group, Safari said the Islamic Republic of Iran is a powerful country in the international arena and has so far established very good relations with some BRICS member states such as China, Russia and India, and is after developing its economic ties with other members of the group including Brazil and South Africa.
He put the value of Iran’s trade exchanges with Brazil in 2022 at $6 billion and said the trade ties between the two countries are on an upward trajectory.
The deputy foreign minister also said that President Raisi may attend the next summit of the BRIC economic group in person or through videoconference.
In response to a question on whether existing sanctions imposed against Iran will have an effect on Iran’s membership in this economic group, Safari said that the process of Iran’s membership request in BRICS has not faced any problems so far.