JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s leading opposition party said on Tuesday it had taken legal action to force the government to arrest Vladimir Putin if the Russian President were to attend a planned summit in the country.

Pretoria has been faced with a diplomatic dilemma since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin, who is supposed to visit the nation for a BRICS meeting in August.

On Tuesday, the Democratic Alliance (DA) party said it launched a court application to ensure the government detains the Russian leader and hands him over to the ICC “should President Putin set foot in South Africa.”

“This pre-emptory court action aims to ensure that South Africa upholds its obligations,” DA shadow minister of justice Glynnis Breytenbach said in a statement.

A member of the ICC, South Africa, which has close diplomatic ties with Moscow, is due to host the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) bloc summit.

But the government is yet to say how it intends to deal with the Russian president’s predicament.

Breytenbach said the DA was seeking a “declaratory order” to avoid a repeat of 2015 when Pretoria failed to arrest then-Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was similarly wanted by the ICC.