The Foreign Ministers of the expanded nine-nation BRICS group met today in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, preparing for the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, October 22-24. No final statement was issued at the meeting’s conclusion, but India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar posted afterwards that the discussions at the meeting “underlined [the BRICS’] significance for multi-polarity and global diversity,” citing “reforming multilateralism and strengthening development … addressing debt, promoting fair trade and overcoming poverty” as among the topics covered. The Russian Foreign Ministry concurred that there had been an “in-depth exchange of views on a broad range of international issues … peace and security, global economic stability, and sustainable development” at the meeting. That included the Middle East crisis (Gaza and Lebanon, in particular), according to an Egyptian report.
Egypt’s State Information Service focused its coverage on Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Badr Abdelatty’s call for the BRICS “to play a pivotal role in reforming the international financial structure and providing adequate funding to developing nations.” Egypt is one of the nations suffering from having “the IMF’s knife on its neck.” Abdelatty spoke of the need for “a more sustainable international debt structure” and access to development funding through “grants, concessional financing, technology transfer, and capacity building.”
