NEW DELHI, June 10. /TASS/. Foreign ministers of the BRICS countries expressed their support for the comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including the Security Council, the Indian Foreign Ministry said citing a joint a statement on Monday.

"Mindful of the 2023 Johannesburg II Declaration the Ministers voiced their support for a comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including its Security Council, with a view to making it more democratic, representative, effective and efficient, and to increase the representation of developing countries in the Council’s memberships so that it can adequately respond to prevailing global challenges and support the legitimate aspirations of emerging and developing countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America, including BRICS countries, to play a greater role in international affairs, in particular in the United Nations, including its Security Council," the statement reads.

The UN Security Council consists of 15 countries, including five permanent members (Russia, the United Kingdom, China, the United States and France). Ten more countries are non-permanent members of the organization and they are elected every two years.

The Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod is hosting this week a two-day meeting of the BRICS foreign ministers and it is chaired by top Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov.

This is the first meeting of foreign ministers after the expansion of the group in 2023. Following the 15th BRICS Summit in August 2023 in Johannesburg under the rotating chairmanship of South Africa a number of countries joined the BRICS association. The list of the new countries includes Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Russia took over the BRICS’ year-long presidency on January 1, 2024. Russia’s presidency features more than 250 various events, with a BRICS summit in Kazan in October 2024 being the central one.