September 10, 2021
BRICS Virtual summit was chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi.
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping participated in the summit.
The leaders strongly condemned the terror attack at the Kabul International Airport and extended their support to the citizens.
BRICS Counter-Terrorism Action Plan for implementing the grouping's Counter-Terrorism Strategy was endorsed.
The 13th BRICS Summit 2021 chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi was held in a virtual format on Thursday, September 10, 2021. It saw participation of Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The focal point of the discussion was the situation in Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15, 2021.
While the leaders refrained from mentioning the Taliban, they expressed their shared concern over the nation’s “latest developments” and emphasized on the need to refrain from violence and “settling the situation by peaceful means”. They also asserted on the need to ensure that the territory of Afghanistan is not used as the medium to carry out terror activities against other countries and prevent terrorism in all forms, including the cross-border movement of terrorists. The ‘New Delhi Declaration’, first statement since Afghanistan was taken over by the Taliban stressed on the “need to contribute to fostering an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue so as to ensure stability, civil peace, law and order in the country.” It also strongly condemned the attack at the Hamid Karzai Kabul International Airport which resulted in several deaths and casualties, called for addressing the humanitarian situation, and upholding human rights, especially those of women, children and minorities.
Sanjay Bhattacharyya,Secretary, consular, passport, visa & overseas Indian affairs (CPV&OIA), at the Ministry of External Affairs, stated that the summit backed India’s position on Afghanistan’s developments and the necessity to ensure that the situation didn’t affect the country’s neighbours. The BRICS Counter-Terrorism Action Plan for implementing the group’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy, taken on by the National Security Advisers (NSAs) of the other member nations was also validated at the Summit. PM Modi, in his statement, underlined that India’s choice of the theme for its tenure as the chairman of BRICS reflected its priority to become more result-oriented in terms of nation-building – ‘BRICS@15: Intra BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus’, were underlined by the PM as the four C’s of the fundamental principles of BRICS partnership.