MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. Russia intends to invite a large number of state leaders and heads of regional organizations of the global South to the BRICS Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Nizhny Novgorod and the unification summit in Kazan, candidate for the post of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a plenary session of the Federation Council, where consultations on his reappointment to the post are being completed.

"Establishing a dialogue with the countries that show interest in rapprochement with BRICS, interest in the whole gamut, from full membership to establishing working, partnership relations, is a very important task," he said. "There are about 30 such countries. The question of how we can strengthen the dialogue with them will be among the top political priorities [of Russia's BRICS chairmanship]. We intend to invite a large number of countries and heads of regional organizations of the global South to our foreign policy events in Nizhny Novgorod and also to the summit in Kazan," he added.

Lavrov recalled that the participants in last year's BRICS summit in Johannesburg (South Africa) decided to form a new category of partner countries, which "will largely replace the BRICS+ format that has existed so far."

The BRICS group has gone through two waves of expansion since its founding in 2006. In 2011, the Republic of South Africa joined the original association, which included Brazil, Russia, India and China. On January 1, 2024, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt joined the group.

This year Russia holds the BRICS chairmanship. The meeting of the BRICS heads of diplomatic missions will be held in Nizhny Novgorod in June. The BRICS summit will be held in Kazan in October.