Turkey aims to enhance cooperation with BRICS: Erdogan

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA

Turkey sees the 10th BRICS summit as an opportunity to develop cooperation in the field of economy, investment and development areas, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

"We wish to conclude membership negotiations between our Treasury and Finance Ministry and BRICS' new development bank in a short term. We can team up to establish […] more objective credit rating agencies," Erdogan said at the summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Turkish president said that his country also aims to move forward the cooperation with BRICS in the field of energy.

He said Turkey and BRICS -- made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- can develop institution-based cooperation.

"The present system satisfies no one, except the privileged few whose interests were guaranteed [under current system]," he stressed.

He underlined that the world is facing a “troubled period” as the economic crisis has been repeating decennially, and people witnessed wars, terrorist acts and diseases.

"It is not possible that this structure will remain unchanged […]," Erdogan added.

The president highlighted that he was invited to the summit as the term president of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

He underlined that there is a need to enhance cooperation between the OIC and the BRICS and that they can benefit from processes of south-south cooperation for a “fairer world.”

South-south cooperation refers to exchange resources, technology, and knowledge among developing countries.

"I see a benefit to evaluate possibilities of cooperation between the Islamic Development Bank and BRICS' new development bank for supporting development efforts in Africa," he added.

He said they anticipated BRICS' demand to play a role in south-south cooperation and noted that Turkey is among the leading countries in official development assistance (ODA) field.

"Last year, Turkey was placed near the top countries with $8.2 billion ODA. Turkey was also ranked the first in the humanitarian assistance field in 2017," he stressed.

Turkey also hosts over 4 million displaced people -- mostly from Syria and Iraq -- while several western countries condemn refugees by installing razor wires on borders, the president said.

He noted that Turkey has so far spent $32 billion on asylum seekers.

"Our country also brought up a topic of development to the G20's agenda in the period of our term presidency in 2015. On 4 June, we opened the United Nations' Technology Bank dedicated to least developed countries," Erdogan said.

He noted that Turkey's direct investments in Africa have reached over $6 billion.

The 10th BRICS summit, hosted by South Africa in the financial capital Johannesburg, started on Wednesday and lasts through Friday.

The BRICS group was established in 2006 to enhance cooperation between member countries and also other developing countries.