Yunus Soner, Kazan, Russia
The BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia has concluded. On its final day, after the presentation of the Kazan Declaration, we spoke to Pepe Escobar, Brazilian geopolitics expert specialized on Eurasian Affairs. Here’s how Escobar summarized the outcomes of the summit.
Okay, your basic takeaway of this summit, what happened here?
It’s very hard to give you a takeaway in one minute. Several things. Putin’s press conference was relatively short for the standards, and we didn’t have enough time to ask questions. There were probably 10 questions, 12 questions. And he’s still having bilateral meetings after that, you know, tons of bilateral meetings.
Some of the things he said were very, very important. In terms of BRICS members and partners respecting the independence of Russia, which implies the notion of mutual respect, which is a cornerstone of BRICS. The fact that on the same table in the BRICS outreach, BRICS Plus, we had everyone from Bolivia to Palestine to António Guterres from the UN and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, which is ostracized not only by the Americans and Europeans, but many Latin Americans as well. Very, very important.
By the way, as you know by now, Venezuela as a partner was vetoed by Brazil. So, this is an extremely sorry state of affairs because the Brazilian government nowadays they are, I would say, they are total vassals of the Democrats in the US. They don’t have a measure of sovereignty and on top of it there is an anti-BRICS lobby in Brazil at the highest levels, at ministerial level as well. And on top of that, Brazil doesn’t want to lose this, let’s say, predominance of being the top nation in Latin America in BRICS. And Venezuela is an energy powerhouse. Everybody would flock to Venezuela. Venezuela is even offering energy deals to anyone that wants it.
But Ukraine: What Putin said about Ukraine, reiterating what he has been saying for a long time. ‘We didn’t search this war. This war was imposed essentially by NATO expansion. We warned that this would have consequences. We are trying to find a solution’. ‘We are’, he said many times, ‘we are open to any scenario that leads to the end of the war. But the government in Kyiv’, meaning what he meant exactly, the masters, every time there is a reasonable scenario being floated, it collapses.
But the most important thing was this geopolitical approximation and coordination of all these BRICS members and the BRICS partners. I was very pleased with the list of 13 BRICS partners. There are four from Southeast Asia, two from Central Asia, Africans and Cuba from Latin America.
This is very important. This is an homage to Cuba. In fact, can you imagine that all of them agreed about this, and they see the importance of Cuba as a metaphor of resistance, of global resistance over decades. Very, very important.
Their position on Palestine. Putin said explicitly there’s only one solution to everything that is happening. A fully sovereign Palestinian state.
So, this is, we can say that this is the BRICS position by the president at his press conference when he’s more relaxed. So, he came back to the main point, and they discussed this in the BRICS outreach in detail. Mahmoud Abbas is right behind us at this moment while we speak. So, many pluses.
Kazan Declaration “a road map”
Critics might say, ah, but there’s nothing practical about it. Of course not, because the depth and the reach of these decisions are so huge.
They were outlining a road map. The road map, you go to the Kazan Declaration, 43 pages if I’m not mistaken, 130 different points talking about everything, it’s over there. And it will be presented to the UN Security Council. It will be fascinating to see this document arriving at the UN Security Council because in many aspects this document is what the UN should be doing, and it’s not. And now the Global South, okay, this large representation of the Global South is showing not only to the UN but to the whole world, look, this is what should be done so we have a fairer system of international relations, geoeconomically and geopolitically. So, I would say that this is the major takeaway of the forum.
And my image for it is this is the station and the building where we are is part of a large station. So, from here we can go to an airport or take a train to go to the city. So, it is a station, right? The high-speed rail train has already left the BRICS station, and now it’s going to pick up speed.
What’s the next stop then?
Excellent question. We don’t know where the next stop is. There will be many stops, but it’s already a high-speed rail journey because now it’s picking up real speed. And the fact that we have not only the BRICS on board, but these 13 partners from, you know, very important developing regions.
You have noticed that Putin came back always to the same two regions in the world when he was talking about potential future development. Africa, Southeast Asia. So, no wonder we have new Africans and new Southeast Asian BRICS partners as well.
Coordination of existing payment systems
What about the alternative payment system and de-dolarization?
It’s too early. And Putin said that. He said that we already have systems, alternative systems to switch sort of the Russian SPFS, the Chinese chips, the Iranian system as well. So, I think from now on, they will start to coordinate these three, for instance, other members. That’s where the BRICS Bridge system comes in.
Nobody spoke here specifically about BRICS Bridge. But at the Russian Ministry of Finance in Moscow they are taking this very, very seriously. Why? Because they talk to the Emirates and the Chinese, and these say ‘we like this. It’s not anti’. It’s very similar to the M-PAY system, which is an IMF thing. So, we can do our own, let’s say an IMF cousin.
You see, I noticed, and in the language of the Kazan Declaration, I noticed a very specific directive of not antagonizing the West. They’re basically saying, look, there’s a lot of stuff that needs reform. We propose to do it this way. So, they are not being frontally adverse to the Western system. This is very good. This is very diplomatic.
And I would say this is Chinese influence, certainly, convincing the others. So, okay, this is just a first impression, but the whole thing is so rich. And we’re going to need, I would say, weeks or even months to digest the Kazan Declaration, and then they start reading, you know, in the bylines, no annexes, which is good, but really start grasping what they are trying to say in a very diplomatic language.
This interview was conducted on behalf of and first appeared on TeleSUR Tv.