Lavrov: at least 12 countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS

At least 12 countries are already showing interest in participating in BRICS, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with his Indian counterpart, as was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, TASS reported.

The BRICS member countries intend to agree on the criteria and principles of the potential expansion of this association in the near future, the Russian foreign minister said.

"Before talking about how and when the expansion of BRICS specifically will begin, we have agreed as part of the five to agree on the criteria and principles for considering such an application."

Sergey Lavrov Russian Foreign Minister

According to Lavrov, agreeing on the criteria and principles of BRICS enlargement should not take a long time, as we are talking about formal applications.

The foreign minister added that it is also important to understand how this association will develop further with a potentially enlarged membership.

Lavrov noted, the BRICS bloc, uniting Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is quite in demand. "Interest in this global association is very, very high and continues to grow. It's not just Algeria, Argentina, Iran. In fact, there are more than a dozen of these countries," the Russian minister stressed.

He point out that the BRICS+-format summit, where leaders discussed internal affairs and outlined future plans in the form of a declaration, was followed by the BRICS summit in June that brought together 13 participating countries.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar arrived in Moscow on Monday as part of his two-day visit to Russia.

Photo: kremlin.ru