MOSCOW (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel&nbsp;Macron&nbsp;would&nbsp;be an&nbsp;inappropriate&nbsp;guest&nbsp;at the&nbsp;BRICS&nbsp;summit, the RIA news agency quoted&nbsp;Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday, criticising countries whose policies&nbsp;Russia&nbsp;considers hostile.
The&nbsp;BRICS&nbsp;group of emerging economies, comprising Brazil,&nbsp;Russia, India, China and South Africa, is due to hold a&nbsp;summit&nbsp;in Johannesburg in August.
Asked about&nbsp;Macron's reported desire to attend the&nbsp;summit, Ryabkov said: "Clearly, leaders of states that pursue such a hostile and unacceptable policy towards us, discussing with such emphasis and conviction that&nbsp;Russia&nbsp;should be isolated on the international stage, and share the common NATO line on inflicting a so-called strategic defeat on us - such a leader is an&nbsp;inappropriate&nbsp;BRICS&nbsp;guest.
"And we are not hiding this approach of ours, we have told our colleagues from South Africa. We expect that our point of view will be fully accepted," Ryabkov was quoted as saying.
South Africa is currently mulling its legal options if&nbsp;Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to attend the&nbsp;BRICS&nbsp;summit&nbsp;because the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the Ukraine conflict.
South Africa is an ICC member and&nbsp;would&nbsp;theoretically be required to arrest him if he attends the&nbsp;BRICS&nbsp;summit.
&nbsp;
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Toby Chopra and Gareth Jones)

you might like

Macron would be inappropriate guest at BRICS summit, says Russia