Azerbaijan has applied to join BRICS, an intergovernmental organisation led by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Baku.

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizade told Report on Tuesday that Azerbaijan had filed an application to join the organisation. 

While Hajizade did not provide any further details about Azerbaijan’s application to join BRICS, on Wednesday, Russian state news agency TASS quoted Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy chair of Russia’s Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, as saying that Azerbaijan’s application could be considered at the upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan in October.

In his Telegram channel, Dzhabarov noted that Azerbaijan had announced its bid for BRICS membership immediately after Putin’s visit.

He noted that Azerbaijan and China, a leading member of the bloc, adopted a strategic partnership declaration in July, which indicated Baku’s interest in joining BRICS. 

[Read more: ‘One Belt, One Road’: Azerbaijan courts Chinese investors as Xi meets Aliyev]

Dzhabarov praised Azerbaijan’s foreign policy, which he said ‘irritates Western countries, especially the United States and France’.

‘Baku wants to build strong relations with states that want to live in a multipolar world. And this is the right choice. I am sure that sooner or later other [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries will join us.’

In an article for IPS in late July, political analyst Bahruz Samadov speculated that Azerbaijan wanted to join BRICS owing to the bloc’s ‘multipolar’ discourse, which he argued ‘opposes the Western approach to human rights and civil liberties in favour of [advocating for the sovereignty] of non-Western states based on pragmatic economic cooperation.’ 

‘For Azerbaijan, such an ideological component fits perfectly in its ongoing crackdown, justifying it as Baku’s sovereigntist approach’, he wrote. 

According to the BBC, BRICS member states have a combined population of 3.5 billion, or 45% of the world’s inhabitants. The organisation is also home to several of the world’s biggest petrol producers, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, with BRICS producing about 44% of the world’s crude oil.