ISTANBUL

A two-day meeting of foreign ministers belonging to the BRICS bloc of emerging economies commenced on Monday in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.

The meeting marks the first gathering since the group expanded from five members to nine in January with the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates as official members.

Another 15 countries, including Türkiye, were also invited to the expanded format of the meeting.

The meeting chaired by Russia began with a minute of silence in memory of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who were killed in a helicopter crash in the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan last month.

“Recent international events have taken off the masks of those (the West) who until now had verbally claimed almost the exclusive right to define so-called universal values ​​under the guise of a rules-based order,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Arguing that those supporting this idea are trying to impose norms and mechanisms only beneficial only to them, Lavrov said the US and its allies are trying to preserve their dominance and slow down the formation of multipolarity.

“They use economic instruments as weapons, through sanctions pressure and financial blackmail, try to influence the choice of development models and trading partners by sovereign states,” he added.

He said active work is being done to implement the decisions made at the BRICS Johannesburg summit last year, indicating the measures particularly focus on developing a platform for transactions in national currencies.