Did Turkey's anti-India policy cost it BRICS membership? Erdogan's hopes dashed for now

Amid India's rift with Turkey over the latter's overt support for Pakistan in the recent conflict, reports cite that Turkey's hopes for entering BRICS, the intergovernmental organisation comprising 10 countries, including India, might have hit a dead end.

Turkey has repeatedly expressed interest in joining BRICS, claiming in 2024 that it was offered partner country status by the group of nations.

Its interest in joining the bloc was "to balance its Eastern and Western ties", according to the country's government. Last year, Ankara applied to become the first NATO country to join the BRICS economic bloc.

However, as another BRICS summit gets underway in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, Turkey's hopes for entry into the bloc have faded. Speculations are that India's opposition could have played a role in it. BRICS requires unanimous acceptance of new members. 

In Rio, Turkey was represented at the summit by Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan, and there has so far been no official statement regarding its position on membership or partnership after the summit. While BRICS accepted countries such as Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Cuba as "partner countries", there was no official statement regarding its position on membership or partnership after the summit.

India’s reservation was one of the determining factors in the BRICS membership process, according to Turkish media Turkiye Gazetezi. The report added that India approached the membership application cautiously due to Türkiye’s NATO membership and different approaches to "some regional issues."

Sources familiar with the issue told Middle East Eye that China and India had reservations about Turkey's membership last year, effectively blocking Ankara's path to full BRICS membership. "Turkey is Nato," a Brazilian diplomat told MEE in December. "Several countries have concerns about how that would work with the bloc."

The diplomat added that India was the chief opponent of Turkey's participation.

However, there were speculations last year too that India had opposed its entry as a BRICS partner country. The report first appeared in a German daily, alleging that India had opposed Turkey's entry into the BRICS partner mechanism. The claim was dismissed by Turkey.

Middle East