Monitoring Desk: Pakistan is not included in BRICS while 13 more countries have officially been added as BRICS partners.
It was expected that Pakistan would not be included as Islamabad took almost 16 years to apply for membership.
Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam are new BRICS partners.
The BRICS was founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining it in 2011. On January 1, 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, became full-fledged members while Saudi Arabia hinted it would take more time to consider to become full members. Up to 30 states have expressed a desire to join the BRICS work in one way or another but BRICS does not want to expand further instantly.
Pakistan has been a non-NATO pro-west state in South Asia since the 1950s and tries to balance out between Global North and Global South.