The foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China met for the first in the Urals city of Yekaterinenburg outside of the format of other international organizations to discuss broadening their relations, according to dpa. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the meeting of the so-called BRIC grouping of fast-growing nations was "a result of the natural course of things that will find reflection in organizational forms." "All sides are interested in broadening the agenda of our meeting," Lavrov said in the meeting Friday. The four economic powerhouses were set to sign a joint communique on their common approach to international issues Friday. Lavrov said on the agenda were issues of international law, global security threats and the financial markets. A Foreign Ministry spokesman added that climate change problems would also be addresses, news agency Interfax reported. UN Security Council members Russia and China have spearheaded the rapprochement as proponents of a multipolar view of international politics, which seeks to balance against a US hegemony by giving more importance to international organisations. "Russia is interested in developing the cooperation of BRIC countries into an important factor of multilateral diplomacy that contributes to strengthening the emerging multipolar world," ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov told Itar-tass Friday. On Friday, the BRIC nations discussed widening UN involvement in the ongoing fight against insurgents in Afghanistan as part of this outlook. Kosovo's independence was another international bone of contention that has aligned India, China and Russia against US support for the province's break from Serbia. "We believe that the problem of Kosovo should be resolved only on the basis of international law," Lavrov reiterated Friday. BRIC was coined in a Goldman Sachs bank report to refer to the countries who look set to outstrip the Group of Seven economies of the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, and Canada in the next 25 years. Russia has capitalized on its surging economic growth of 8.1 per cent last year to demand a greater role on the world scene. In his keynote speech as premier Thursday, Vladimir Putin said Russia would overtake Britain in terms of GDP by 2009.
