MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. BRICS member states intend to negotiate the criteria and principles of potential expansion of the association shortly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during the meeting with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
"Before we talk about how and when will the BRICS expansion begin exactly, we have agreed to negotiate the criteria and principles of reviewing this kind of applications between the five member states," Lavrov noted. "Considering that we already receive official applications, we expect, of course, that the negotiations of the criteria and principles will not take too long. We must first understand how this association will develop in its potential expanded membership."
According to Lavrov, BRICS, which unites Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is in rather high demand.
"The interest to this global association is quite high and continues to grow," he noted. "Not only Algeria, Argentina and Iran - in fact, there are more than a dozen of such states."
The Russian Minister noted that the June BRICS online summit, where the leaders of the five member states adopted a declaration outlining the future plans, was followed by a BRICS+ summit, attended by leaders of 13 states.
"This list is well known, it includes countries representing all developing regions of the world without exception: Asia, Africa, Latin America, and we welcome such interest, of course," Lavrov underscored.