Dilemma for Pretoria. I’south Africa will indeed host the next Brics Summit in August, where Vladimir Poutin invited, even though an arrest warrant was issued by International Criminal Court (CPI) against the Russian head of state, his president confirmed on Sunday 9 July.

“We made progress in organizing the BRICS Summit and complete the discussion on the format“, Cyril Ramaphosa told the press, noting that this meeting which brings together South Africa, Brazil, China, India and Russia will take place in principle “physically”.

He did not comment on whether or not to attend the Vladimir Putin summit, which was targeted in March by a warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes “deportation” of Ukrainian children since the invasion of Ukraine. , accusations which Moscow immediately denied .

South Africa currently leads the BRICS, a group of five major developing powers which intends to give more consideration to international institutions until now dominated by the United States and Europe. Their next summit, the fifteenth, is scheduled for August 22-24 at the convention center in Johannesburg.

“We will have this Brics summit physically, we are all committed to having a summit where we can look each other in the eye,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, who was questioned on the matter on the sidelines of his party’s ANC conference. “We haven’t had a physical meeting in… almost three years. It won’t be virtual,” he said.

As a member of the ICC, South Africa should theoretically arrest the Russian president if he enters its territory. A serious diplomatic dilemma for Pretoria, which has refused to condemn Moscow since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Rumors carried by the South African media suggest that Pretoria is considering moving the summit to China to avoid arresting Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin “guest”

continental Diplomatic Powers, South Africa claims to adopt a neutral position to be able to “play a role in resolving conflicts”, was described earlier Cyril Ramaphosa, said he had met with Vladimir Putin several times. His country also hosted naval exercises with Russia and China off its shores in February, raising “concerns” from major Western powers.

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Relations between South Africa and Russia date back to the apartheid era, with the Kremlin supporting the ANC in its fight against racist regimes.

Last month, Cyril Ramaphosa took it for the first time delegations of African Heads of State (South Africa, Senegal, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Uganda) in Ukraine then in Russia to try to move towards peace between kyiv and moscow. The mission yielded no tangible results, but it made the voices of the African continent, which had suffered greatly from the conflict, in particular the sharp rise in cereal prices.

The African mediation offer was rejected by Kiev, which did not want to negotiate with Moscow as long as there were Russian troops on its soil, and Moscow found it “very difficult to implement”.

The African peace proposal is summarized in 10 points, among which are “de-escalation on both sides”, “recognition of sovereignty” of countries recognized by the United Nations, “security guarantees” for all parties, lifting of grain export barriers through the Black Sea, “liberation of prisoners of war”, as well as post-war reconstruction

With AFP