- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA on Thursday (9) was set to chair the 13th summit of the BRICS grouping with prime minister Narendra Modi virtually participating in the meet. India’s chairmanship, which has coincided with the bloc’s 15th anniversary, will be based on ‘BRICS@15: Intra BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus’.
The summit will discuss, among other things, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and threats of terror emerging from the region.
Informed sources told Asian News International that the leaders present at the summit are likely to underscore the priority of fighting terrorism, including preventing attempts by terror organisations to use the soil of Afghanistan to conduct attacks against other countries.
“BRICS countries are also likely to emphasize the need to address the humanitarian situation and to uphold human rights, including those of women, children, and minorities,” one source said.
Other issues like cross-border terrorism, terror-financing networks and safe havens are also expected to come up in the talks. According to the sources, cooperation on counter-terrorism has always been a priority for India in BRICS, which also includes Brazil, Russia and South Africa.
“The Counter-Terrorism Working Group was first established in our presidency in 2016, in 2017 PM Modi made a call for the adoption of a BRICS counter-terrorism strategy and finally in 2021, under our chairship BRICS NSAs adopted an Action Plan (a practical document for cooperation) to implement the BRICS CT Strategy. As part of this strategy, BRICS has committed to combating terrorism, including the cross-border movement of terrorists, and terrorism financing networks and safe-havens,” one source added.
Priorities for India as a chair of BRICS include Reform of the Multilateral System, Counter-Terrorism Cooperation, Digital and Technological Tools for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals and Enhancing People to People Exchanges.
The adoption of a joint statement on ‘Strengthening and Reforming of the Multilateral System’ by the BRICS foreign ministers is the first of its kind to be adopted by the BRICS members.
