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Russia: BRIC can provide new leadership

YEKATERINBURG: Russia has indicated plans to build a coalition with India, China and Brazil as the Foreign Ministers of the four countries arrived in Yekaterinburg for meetings that will be held on May 15-16.

Moscow called on BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to provide “collective leadership” to the world and “promote the establishment of informal mechanisms for collective leadership by the leading countries of the world,” said a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

A trilateral meeting of Russia, India and China (RIC) on Thursday precedes the BRIC meeting on Friday.

A communiqué to be adopted at the RIC meeting would, for the first time, outline positions of the countries on issues, including Afghanistan, North Korea and Irans. This reflected an enhanced degree of mutual understanding within the triangle.

It would be the fourth standalone RIC meeting at the level of Foreign Ministers. The BRIC forum on May 16 will be the first ever meeting of the Foreign Ministers. It would institutionalise the interaction along the lines of the RIC.

In another first, the trilateral and quadripartite meetings would be held at the same time and in the same place. This could start the process of gradual incorporation of RIC into BRIC.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who arrived from Dubai on Wednesday, would hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Russia, China and Brazil. It will be the first high-level interaction between India and Russia since President Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in.

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