Cape Town - Africa’s largest natural gas exporter, Algeria has said that BRICS interests them as an alternative to traditional power centres in the world.
According to the Global Times, signals from Algeria that it wants to join BRICS demonstrate that more and more countries have faith in the group, and its ability to offset the negative influence of certain countries' rising unilateralism and protectionism, said experts.
In addition to Iran and Argentina, which have officially applied to join BRICS, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt are also signalling an intent for membership of the group.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's comment comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin in June called on BRICS leaders to move towards "formation of a truly multi-polar system of inter-government relations".
At present, Russia is being hit by some of the harshest Western sanctions over its Ukraine invasion, which has seen international markets buckle due to petrol and gas prices sky-rocketing, the movement and handling of African students fleeing to Africa after the war broke out in Europe, as well as global food insecurity which threatens millions due to an ongoing maize and inflation crisis.
The BRICS group also includes the major emerging economies of Brazil, India and South Africa.
Algeria and Russia relations
In April, Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with the President Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
According to the Russian presidency, the presidents exchanged greetings on the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries marked this year and noted that Russia and Algeria enjoy steady and consistent development of friendly ties.
Vladimir Putin and Abdelmadjid Tebboune reaffirmed their intention to continue bilateral coordination within the OPEC+ format and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in the interests of ensuring stability on global energy markets,” said the Russian presidency.
The presidents expressed concern over the recent escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stressed the importance of intensifying international efforts on a Middle East settlement. They also discussed the situation in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, US-China tensions continue to rise over Taiwan, the situation between North Korea, the US and South Korea remains a concern, with leader of the North, Kim Jong-un, recently saying the country was fully ready for any military confrontation with the US.
IOL