"I would like to stress that we see Latin America as an emerging center of the multipolar world, the one which plays an increasingly positive role in international affairs from year to year,” Naryshkin said during a meeting with Vice President of Brazil Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia.
Cooperation with Latin American countries is an important direction of Russia’s foreign policy, the lawmaker added.
"We share quite similar views on many challenges of today’s world, and it makes us natural allies," he said.
Moscow has stepped up cooperation with Latin America and BRICS countries in light of a deterioration of relations with the West, following accusations of fueling the internal Ukrainian crisis – a claim Russia has refuted.
Also Sergei Naryshkin noted that Russia highly appreciates the sovereign position of Brazil in relation to US and EU anti-Moscow sanctions imposed over the Ukrainian crisis.
"We appreciate the position of your country in relation to the unlawful sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union on the Russian Federation. We understand how much pressure you have experienced and are still experiencing in this regard, but you continue to have such an independent, sovereign and principled position on this issue," Naryshkin said at a meeting with Brazilian Vice President Michel Miguel Elias Temer in Moscow.
"I am confident that the intense interaction between the parliaments contributes to the development of relations between our countries literally in all spheres," he stated.
Since 2014, the United States, the European Union and its allies imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia over Moscow’s alleged involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Deterioration of relations with the West prompted Moscow to develop stronger ties with Latin American and BRICS countries.
In July, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said that Brazil fully supports Russia's position that Western economic sanctions are counterproductive.
