Russia says BRICS does not aim to create mechanism for ‘new dictatorship of world majority’

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that the BRICS economic bloc does not intend to create a mechanism for a “new dictatorship of the world majority.”

“In all our actions, statements, declarations and in practice, all our countries always emphasize that we are open at any time for honest and equal dialogue,” Lavrov said in an address to a meeting of officials of BRICS nations in Moscow.

BRICS comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia.

According to him, honest approaches have not been seen from Western leaders for a long time. Equality is “a rare quality that is clearly in short supply,” he added.

Lavrov further said that the US, as well as those who “control the global monetary and financial system,” have proven their “inability to negotiate and unreliability.”

“It turned out that all the sacred principles of the free market could be torn off overnight and turned into an instrument of coercion for those who were not liked by Washington today. Such a fate can await any country,” Lavrov said.

He went on to say that regional integration processes like BRICS have intensified under these conditions, adding that the bloc is “something like a cooperation network” that will “promote harmonization and the development of integration in the countries of the world majority at the global level.”

Commenting on Russia’s chairmanship in the bloc for this year, Lavrov said Moscow will pay great attention to countries that have decided to establish partnerships with the organization, saying: “The accession of new members to BRICS strengthens the strategic partnership and international position of our association.”

“BRICS is fully capable of shaping the global agenda, consistently defending the interests of the world majority, offering its vision of the contours of the future world order, based on objective events, the objective development of things, and not on artificially constructed schemes designed to slow down the development of humanity,” he added.