Durban – As things stand, South Africa will host and chair the 15th Brics summit as the Presidency has distanced itself from reports that the summit will be moved to China.
The South African government is under pressure over an International Criminal Court warrant of arrest issued for Russian president Vladimir Putin, as it prepares to host the BRICS summit in August.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has recently held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin, and this has fuelled speculation that the 15th BRICS summit will be held in another country to avoid a diplomatic fallout over Putin’s arrival in the country.
According to reports, the inter ministerial committee (IMC) headed by Deputy President Paul Mashatile has tabled a report to cabinet that proposed three options which all advise against visiting South Africa.
The discussions take place as Ramaphosa is leading the African heads of state mission to Moscow and Kiev to try to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that has had an impact on the global economy.
The Presidency at the weekend would not be drawn into the diversion of the summit but confirmed that Xi and Ramaphosa had discussed BRICS matters.
At a briefing on Monday, Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said it was reckless to suggest that South Africa risks international sanctions over its stance towards Russia.
“We find this talk of sanctions as being purely alarmist and we find it to be quite undermining to South Africa’s sovereignty, and to the stability of our economy,” he said at a media briefing.
“There is no evidence whatsoever to point to any emergence of sanctions from any country or even from the United Nations Security Council which is the only authority to institute global sanctions.”
Magwenya said Washington had not voiced a threat of sanctions in direct talks with South Africa.
“We’ve had as a government several bilateral discussions with the US government and there has been no suggestion that the US will consider applying sanctions to South Africa, so it is difficult to respond to a question that says we are afraid of sanctions because we don’t have a line of sight as to exactly where those sanctions would be coming from, what will inform those sanctions and what will be the purpose those sanctions will serve.”