NIZHNY NOVGOROD, June 10. /TASS/. The circle of those supporting Moscow and Beijing worldwide is steadily growing, as well as the number of those wishing to cooperate both with BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting in Nizhny Novgorod.
At the beginning of the meeting, the top Russian diplomat noted that he was glad to welcome Wang in Nizhny Novgorod. Lavrov pointed out that the city is actively cooperating with China, "including the implementation of a well-known and very useful Volga-Yangtze project." "Very recently, at a meeting in Astana, we compared notes on the results of the Russia-China summit in May. Our presidents determined the main trends of going forward," he noted.
"We have a special responsibility to pay attention to the foreign policy coordination, above all, in the UN and its Security Council, BRICS, SCO, the Group of Twenty, APEC and other multilateral formats. Our and our Chinese friends’ policy course is being perceived increasingly more positively by the global majority countries; the circle of our supporters is steadily growing; the circle of those wishing to cooperate both with BRICS and the SCO is expanding," the Russian foreign minister emphasized.
"And today, following the first ministerial meeting after BRICS’ expansion, we will discuss these trends and map out steps needed for the further development of the group that we will recommend to our leaders at the Kazan summit in October," Lavrov added.