Russian minister says U.S., Japan block bigger G8

Fri, May 16 09:40 PM

By Conor Sweeney

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russia's foreign minister blamed Japan and the United States on Friday for preventing the Group of Eight industrialised nations expanding to include other countries with big emerging economies.

Sergei Lavrov made the comments at a meeting of foreign ministers from the countries grouped under the initials BRIC -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- in the Russian Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

The four account for 40 percent of the world's population and most of its economic growth, and want to match their growing economic power with more political clout on the world stage in institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank and G8.

G8 leaders acknowledged at a summit in Germany last year that they needed to set up a permanent mechanism for consulting on policy with some of the new big hitters in the global economy but stopped short of offering them full membership.

"It's no secret, the main opposition of the G8 expansion is the U.S. and Japan, you perfectly know it," Sergei Lavrov told the ministers from Brazil, India and China.

Russia formally joined the Group of Seven industrialised nations -- the United States, Japan, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Britain -- at its 1997 summit in the United States.

Host Bill Clinton, then the U.S. president, welcomed Russia into the club in a move hailed as evidence of Moscow's transition to democracy and free markets although Russia's economy was not among the world's eight largest.

The leaders of Brazil, China and India regularly attend G8 meetings as guests. Some analysts say the economies of the four BRIC states could dominate the world economy by 2050.

Lavrov said Britain -- a country that has backed G8 expansion -- was planning to make proposals for big changes to the international financial system.

"Our British colleagues say the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will soon make a statement to the next G8 summit in Italy, on the proposals about global financial organisations," Lavrov said as the meeting ended.

"Our British colleagues have told us they are working on a large-scale initiative," he said, but did not say what Brown was planning for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Lavrov also briefed the foreign ministers on this year's G8 summit starting on July 9 in Japan and set out some of the likely topics for discussion, such as food security, terrorism and a future financial institution reform plan.

Tokyo also wants to put forward a document on the global food crisis and Washington wants to include a statement on fighting terrorism, Lavrov told the other ministers in a closed session that was retransmitted to reporters.

Lavrov also said during a subsequent news conference that a lack of cooperation by the Western defence alliance NATO was hindering efforts to control the flow of drugs from Afghanistan.

China, India and Russia called on Thursday for the creation of a new security belt around Afghanistan to halt the spread of heroin.

"Russia is a member of the Collective Security Organisation (CSO) which is attempting to undercut the drug flows," Lavrov said. "It's necessary to reach agreement between the CSO and NATO and such cooperation would ensure cooperation against the flow of drugs."

"We regret that NATO is not cooperating in this regard."

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