U.S., EU are closely observing BRICS development - Russian sous-sherpa
MOSCOW. May 27 (Interfax) - Russia says the United States and the European Union are paying close attention to the development of BRICS, but is calling for objective evaluations of the organization.
"We feel close attention to the development of BRICS not only from the U.S., but also the EU," Vadim Lukov, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large and Russian sous-sherpa to BRICS, said in an interview with Interfax.
At the same time, he said that the main thing is that this attention "should be based on objective evaluations of what we do, not on biased analyses by politicians and allegations that BRICS intends to do something we don't intend to do."
Lukov reiterated that BRICS has no intention of forming military-political associations.
"We have no intention of forming a military-political bloc, we have no intention of competing with anyone, we are open to cooperation with everyone who is interested in it," Lukov said.
At the same time, he said that, despite the creation of regional integration organizations, all countries should adhere to the integrity of the international trade system based on WTO rules.
"The WTO is a kind of a United Nations Organization in global trade. If it begins collapsing, fierce trade competition will begin, which will be followed by political competition. We are against such a scenario and therefore we firmly support the creation of a unified system of rules on which the WTO is based," Lukov said.
