News / Brèves Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting Shaping Up To Be an Important One 19 June 2017 EIRNS—The June 18-19 BRICS foreign ministers meeting started today in Beijing. On record, the meeting is for the preparation for the BRICS Summit scheduled to be held in Xiamen, China on Sept. 3-5. This is the first time, however, the host country has organized a meeting of the foreign ministers. Despite what is on record, the foreign ministers’ meeting is shaping up to be an important one for more than one reason. In addition to the foreign ministers’ meeting, a BRICS conference on agriculture had taken place weeks back, and a chain of meetings of BRICS officials is scheduled, including a National Security Advisors meeting to be held July 27-28, according to the calendar China’s BRICS 2017. This preparation for a BRICS summit, now under China’s presidency, is by far the most extensive ever. On the foreign ministers’ meeting, TASS reported Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is attending the meeting, which will focus on "a wide range of most pressing problems of maintaining global peace and stability, global economy, as well as issues of cooperation and coordination of BRICS approaches against the complicated background of global turbulence," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh, who represented India, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi have already held talks on including the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project and India’s bid for Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) membership, with New Delhi expressing its willingness to boost strategic partnership and mutual dialogue with Beijing, Zee News reported. FirstPost, an Indian news agency, reported China saying on June 16 that the BRICS foreign ministers meeting being held in Beijing will involve a candid exchange of views to forge consensus on counter-terrorism, while claiming that it opposes any "double standards" on the issue. "On counter-terrorism, we have a clear-cut position that terrorism is the common enemy of mankind," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told reporters, responding to India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) General Secretary Ram Madhav’s comments that BRICS countries should shun double standards in fighting terrorism. Lu said that "the BRICS foreign ministers will conduct a candid exchange of views on this issue," FirstPost reported.