A two-day meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in New Delhi ended without a unified stance on the conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel. The outcome document, released at the close of talks chaired by India’s external affairs minister, acknowledged “differing views” among members and set out only broad principles—dialogue, respect for sovereignty, protection of civilians and the need for unimpeded maritime flows—without naming or assigning responsibility to any party.
This was the second BRICS gathering in India this year that failed to produce a joint position on the crisis. The meeting at Bharat Mandapam marked the first major ministerial engagement under India’s 2026 BRICS presidency, ahead of a leaders’ summit scheduled for September.
The talks took place against the backdrop of an expanding conflict that began on February 28 with US and Israeli strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites. Since then, Tehran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, global energy prices have risen, diplomatic efforts—including Pakistan-mediated talks—have stalled, and the US announced a naval blockade of Iranian ports in mid-April.
Attendance reflected the bloc’s new, expanded membership and the diplomatic complications that follow. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, was present, as were Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, Brazil’s Mauro Vieira, South Africa’s Ronald Lamola and the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia. China was represented by its ambassador to India while its foreign minister remained in Beijing. The United Arab Emirates sent its minister of state for foreign affairs rather than the foreign minister. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met visiting ministers on the sidelines before leaving for Abu Dhabi.
Tensions between Iran and the UAE emerged as the meeting’s most visible fault line. In his address, Araghchi appealed to BRICS to condemn what he called US and Israeli violations of international law and urged the bloc to act to halt “warmongering.” He later accused the UAE of being complicit in aggression against Iran—saying Emirati territory was used to launch strikes and claiming UAE aircraft took part in attacks—charges Abu Dhabi denied. The UAE contends Iranian strikes have targeted its energy infrastructure and other civilian facilities and says it has intercepted thousands of Iranian drones and missiles since late February.
The bilateral clash played out in public: the UAE’s representative called for condemnation of Iranian strikes in his national statement, while Araghchi accused the UAE of siding with the US and Israel and said that contributed to the failure to reach consensus. India’s chair, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, sought to steer the meeting back to common ground by stressing the importance of uninterrupted maritime traffic through strategic waterways and warning that unilateral pressure cannot replace dialogue.
Despite the impasse on the Iran crisis, BRICS ministers made progress on many other items. Delegates reported agreement on more than 60 issues covering energy cooperation, trade, digital infrastructure, climate action and reform of multilateral institutions. The final outcome document also condemned the imposition of unilateral coercive measures contrary to international law, language broadly understood as a reference to sanctions, though no country was named.
Analysts say the meeting highlighted enduring limits within the expanded BRICS. Former Pakistani diplomat Jauhar Saleem described the grouping as “disparate,” with members pursuing divergent foreign-policy priorities that make consensus on contentious conflicts unlikely. He argued that bloc-style diplomacy is losing traction in a world where even close alliances show strains, and that bilateral or mediatory diplomacy—such as Pakistan’s recent role hosting talks between Washington and Tehran—may be better suited to resolving such crises.
In short, the New Delhi meeting underscored both BRICS’s potential as a platform for cooperation on economic and institutional issues and its fragility when member states’ strategic interests collide. With Iran and the UAE now full members on opposing sides of an active conflict, the grouping faces a test of whether it can reconcile competing loyalties or will remain a forum where consensus stops short on the most sensitive geopolitical disputes.