Iran, which holds the world's second largest gas reserves, has applied to join the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA that Beijing and Moscow cast as a powerful emerging market alternative to the West.
China has by far the largest economy in the Brics grouping, accounting for more than 70% of the group's collective $27.5-trillion economic might. India accounts for about 13%, with Russia and Brazil each accounting for about 7%, according to IMF data.Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 swept US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from power, Iran has been ostracised by the West and its economy crippled by a myriad of sanctions.
Putin has said relations with China are the best they have ever been and touts a strategic partnership with China aimed at countering US influence. The US and European powers blame Putin's decision to invade Ukraine as the reason relations with the West have sunk to the lowest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis — including the severest sanctions in modern history.
Putin, who casts the Ukraine war as a “special military operation”, blames the US for humiliating Russia in the aftermath of the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and threatening Moscow by enlarging the Nato military alliance.
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