When Russia hosted the first BRIC Leaders' Summit in June 2009, which was attended by Brazil's President Lula, Russia's President Dimitry Medvedev, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and China's President Hu Jintao, Russia's leader hailed Yekatarinburg the as 'the epicenter of world politics.' The need for major developing world nations to meet in new formats was 'obvious,' he said.
Only a day earlier, Russia had hosted, in the same city, the 9th Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), with many observer countries, including a brief visit by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had just been declared the winner of a controversial presidential election in Iran.
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