Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t attend next month’s summit of BRICS leaders in Johannesburg in person, resolving a potential dilemma South Africa faced over whether to execute an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest if he did come.
(Bloomberg) — Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t attend next month’s summit of BRICS leaders in Johannesburg in person, resolving a potential dilemma South Africa faced over whether to execute an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest if he did come.
“By mutual agreement, President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will not attend the summit but the Russian Federation will be represented by Foreign Minister Mr. Sergei Lavrov,” South Africa’s Presidency said in a statement on Wednesday.
Putin’s possible participation in the gathering was being closely monitored by Washington and its allies as they seek to isolate Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. South Africa has adopted a non-aligned stance toward the conflict, a position that has drawn harsh criticism from some of the nation’s largest trading partners, including America and the European Union.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Putin will take part in the summit by video conference, while Lavrov will attend in person.
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The ICC issued the warrant against Putin on March 17 for war crimes related to the alleged abduction of children from Ukraine. South Africa is a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the tribunal and is bound by its decisions.
The decision is the most dramatic example to date of the impact of the ICC’s warrant on Putin, forcing the Russian leader to weigh the potential risk to his liberty of travel abroad — even to friendly states like South Africa. Russia has touted its relations with China, India, Brazil and South Africa in BRICS as evidence that US and European efforts to isolate Putin over the war have failed.
While Putin won’t face the same dilemma in India — which isn’t a signatory to the court — when it hosts the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in September, he has so far avoided any direct confrontation with Ukraine’s US and European allies at international gatherings. He skipped last year’s G-20 in Indonesia, even as the host nation said it was expecting him to attend.
South Africa drew international condemnation in 2015, when it refused to execute an ICC arrest warrant for then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir while he was attending an African Union summit in the country. Former South African President Jacob Zuma proposed withdrawing from the ICC in 2016, though that plan was later abandoned.
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The other BRICS leaders will attend the summit, the first such in-person gathering since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and a statement on the agenda will be issued in due course, according to the South African Presidency.
Officials have previously said the bloc, which generates almost a third of global gross domestic product and has sought to challenge the international dominance of the US and other Western nations, intends discussing whether to open its ranks to new members and establish a common currency.
–With assistance from John Viljoen.
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