Putin won’t attend BRICS Summit in South Africa

[Nat Quinn]

Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t attend next month’s summit of BRICS leaders and will instead be represented by his foreign minister, South Africa’s presidency said. The rand pared its earlier losses.

Putin’s decision means the South African authorities will avoid having to execute an International Criminal Court warrant for the Russian leader’s arrest.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will attend the summit in Putin’s stead, the presidency said in a statement on Wednesday. The decision for Putin not to attend was by mutual consent, it said.

Russia initially refused a request by Ramaphosa for their delegation to be led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov instead of Putin.

India and Brazil rejected a second option to move the summit to China, while a proposal to host the event virtually was opposed by all four nations, he said.

The prospect of Putin visiting South Africa heightened investor concern that the country’s close ties to Moscow threaten its relations with some of its biggest trading partners, including the US.

America’s ambassador to South Africa last month accused Pretoria of contradicting its neutral stance on the war in Ukraine by supplying weapons to Russia, an allegation the government denied.

South Africa’s business community has urged the government to make public its decision on how it will handle Putin’s attendance, BRICS business council member and Aspen Pharmacare executive Stavros Nicolaou said at the meeting.

“We are hopeful that a decision will be taken once and for all shortly so that you know what you are dealing with at the end of the day,” Nicolaou said. “Markets and business hate uncertainty.”

 

SOURCE:Putin won’t attend BRICS Summit in South Africa – Daily Investor

[Author]

Posts