The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) meeting June 5-8 had a very significant BRICS component to it. The two special guests at SPIEF were the Presidents of Zimbabwe and Bolivia, both of whom are applying for membership in the BRICS. Russian President Vladimir Putin met with BRICS Bank (NDB) President Dilma Rousseff on the sidelines of SPIEF. This was all followed by a June 10 meeting of the BRICS Foreign Ministers in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, which was attended by the Foreign Ministers of the nine current BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, U.A.E. and Ethiopia). Saudi Arabia has also been invited to join the BRICS, but it is “still considering” and so the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud attended only as an “invited guest.”
The Saudis, however, remained active in the relevant discussions. “Prince Faisal also held talks at the event with Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri,” another article in ArabNews reported. “Prince Faisal met with Lavrov on the sidelines of the meeting on Monday [June 10] and also held talks with Yvan Eduardo Gil Pinto of Venezuela on the same day.”
The next day, June 11, there was an “Outreach ministerial meeting” in which, according to TASS “delegates from 22 countries were expected to take part,” including representatives from Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belarus, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Türkiye, Venezuela, and Vietnam—as well as the nine current members. TASS further reported that “about 30 more countries are interested in cooperating with the association in this or that format.”