NIZHNY NOVGOROD, June 11. /TASS/. Venezuela wants to join BRICS, which is making great efforts to build a new world order, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto said during talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the BRICS Foreign Ministers' meeting.

"On behalf of President Nicolas Maduro, we thank you for inviting Russia today as a friend of the BRICS. This is a great honor for us, an opportunity to declare our will, the will of Venezuela to join this important bloc, which is making great efforts to create a new world order based on the desire for the well-being of our peoples," he said.

The Venezuelan foreign minister also pointed out that Moscow and Caracas cooperate in agriculture, finance and education. "More and more Venezuelan students come to Russia. The cultural complementarity of the two countries is also important. Venezuela shares most of Russia's positions in the international arena, in the UN and in all multilateral formats. We promote a world where justice prevails," the top diplomat added.

"We are confident that President [Nicolas] Maduro and President [Vladimir] Putin will continue to work to strengthen these positions of our countries," he concluded.

Earlier, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto said in an interview with Venezolana de Television on the sidelines of the BRICS ministerial meeting that the country expects to join BRICS this year.

The BRICS Foreign Ministers' meeting is being held in Nizhny Novgorod on June 10-11.

About BRICS

The BRICS group has now gone through two waves of expansion since its inception in 2006. First, in 2011, South Africa joined founding members Brazil, Russia, India and China. Then, in August 2023, six new members, including Argentina, were invited to join BRICS after the intergovernmental group’s summit in Johannesburg. However, in December 2023, the new Argentinian government of President Javier Milei announced that it had declined the invitation for the time being because it considered integration with BRICS impractical. The five new members - Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - began working as full-fledged BRICS member states since January 1.

Russia has assumed the rotating BRICS chairmanship on January 1, 2024. It will last until the end of the year and will include more than 250 events. The main event will be the BRICS Summit in Kazan in October 2024.