Earlier this month, South African Foreign Minister Dr. Naledi Pandor paid a visit to Tehran on Oct. 22. She was in Egypt for the Oct. 21 conference on the Israel-Palestine crisis and took advantage of her presence in the region to pay a visit to the capital of another newly added BRICS member, Iran, whose official membership begins in 2024, as do Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Argentina.
One of the purposes was to explain in person that the state visit of President Ebrahim Raisi to South Africa would have to be postponed for the time being, because of the Israel-Palestine crisis, but that it did not reflect any ill feeling on the part of South Africa.