Russia has underlined the importance of its relations with India and China, saying the ties with the two Asian giants was a 'priority' of its foreign policy.
"Our relations with emerging, I would rather say emerged, centres of power in the multi-polar world like India and China will remain the priority in our foreign policy in 2008," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
The minister told foreign press corps at the annual New Year reception on Tuesday that even after the changes visualised in the aftermath of the recent Duma elections and the key presidential polls in March the relations with India and China will remain Moscows priority.
He stressed that Moscow is developing interaction with India and China on a trilateral format on key mutual and international issues.
"Besides trilateral format we are also developing and will continue to develop partnership with India and China on the format of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to address the global development and stability agenda," Lavrov said.
The Russian foreign minister also called for greater involvement and integration of India, China, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and African Union in the global developmental activities of the G-8 group of world's richest nations comprising the US, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.
