Russia has said it supports bringing China, India and Brazil into the G8 club if their applications are submitted by older members.
At a late-night news conference after informal G8 summit talks, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that as the G8's newest member Russia should not take the initiative to bring new members into the group.
But he said it was difficult to imagine effective solutions in the economic area without the participation of rapidly-developing economies like those of China and India.
At a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier, US President George W Bush laid the blame for the upsurge in Middle East violence squarely on Hezbollah.
He said the best way to end the violence would be for Hezbollah to stop its rocket attacks on Israel and release the Israeli soldiers it is holding.
He also called on Syria to use its influence.
Mr Putin said the use of force, abductions, or strikes against other countries to achieve political goals was absolutely unacceptable and said the escalation of the violence would not yield positive results.
During the same news conference, the US and Russia announced
a plan to set up international enrichment uranium centres so that all countries who wish to avail of nuclear energy would have access to such processes without having to resort to enriching uranium themselves.
This was presented as a way to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Mr Bush also said that he and President Putin shared common ground on how to approach other urgent issues including the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea.
However, Mr Putin refused to be drawn into commenting on the possible imposition of economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.
