India welcomes Egypt, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia joining BRICS

Moscow: India on Monday wholeheartedly welcomed Egypt, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia joining the BRICS as their representatives attended for the first time a key meeting of the grouping hosted by Russia.

Senior diplomat Dammu Ravi led the Indian delegation at the BRICS Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, in western Russia.

"A significant meeting in the format of expanded BRICS family. India wholeheartedly welcomes the new membership," the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Randhir Jaiswal posted on X.

The meeting on Monday was the first ministerial meeting following BRICS expansion in 2023 when Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE joined Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as full-fledged BRICS members.

Ravi, Secretary (Economic Relations) in MEA, led the Indian delegation at the BRICS Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, it said.

Usually, the External Affairs Minister attends such meetings. Since S Jaishankar was reappointed as External Affairs Minister only on Monday after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony on Sunday, he could not make it to Russia to attend the meeting.

Russia took over the year-long chairmanship of BRICS on January 1, 2024.

Russia’s presidency features more than 250 various events, with a BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024 being the central one, Russia's official TASS news agency reported.