Minister in the Presidency responsible for State Security, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, has assured the BRICS countries that South Africa continues to view the bloc as a crucial strategic partnership through which a just, peaceful and more equitable world order can be pursued and realised.
South Africa, on Tuesday, hosted a BRICS National Security Advisors meeting in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Delivering the opening remarks, Minister Ntshavheni told her BRICS counterparts that state and non-state actors are hard at work in certain parts of the globe using various role players to promote their agenda whilst undermining the countries’ national security.
The Minister said the actors who are often prominent and influential are running covert intelligence networks to destabilise countries that do not share their world view.
“I want to assure our BRICS partners that South Africa continues to view BRICS as a key strategic partnership through which we can continue to pursue and realise a just, safer, peaceful and more equitable world order.
“As an African country, we firmly believe in the need to promote peace and sustainable development as well as deepened political, economic and social relations. South Africa remains deeply committed to multilateral diplomacy, in principle and in our demonstrable actions – particularly through our close collaboration in the bloc,” the Minister said.
Ntshavheni urged the BRICS National Security Advisors to reassert its collective responsibility of providing new perspectives and solutions to the current international security order.
She further highlighted that the meeting is taking place amidst the changing global geopolitical realities where multilateralism is increasingly coming under threat.
“We meet amidst changing global geopolitical realities, a period where multilateralism is increasingly under siege, when the integrity of international agreements can be hastily and expediently compromised, when more countries are succumbing to the temptation to adopt inward-looking positions at the expense of the global common good.
“The world has moved into a new and unsettling geopolitical phase where doubts and questions about the global order are rife,” the Minister asserted.
