Sharp splits over the Iran war have left BRICS struggling to agree a unified stance at a two-day foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi on May 14-15, testing India’s ability to steer the expanded grouping ahead of the 18th leaders’ summit it will host in September. The meeting is a preparatory event for India’s year-long presidency, and divisions over Iran have exposed fault lines between members that prize economic cooperation and those prioritising regional security, according to several accounts. India is attempting to bridge rival positions while protecting ties with the United States, Israel, Iran and Gulf partners, and whatever joint text, if any, emerges will shape diplomatic momentum into September. The talks close on Friday May 15.

The BRICS foreign ministers meeting opened in New Delhi on Thursday, with most sessions held at Bharat Mandapam and Prime Minister Narendra Modi due to join visiting leaders by conference call from Seva Teerth, according to one account. India is using the two-day agenda explicitly to prepare for the leaders’ summit it will host in September. That makes any consensus achieved here politically consequential for New Delhi’s year-long presidency of the grouping.

Fault lines over Iran block collective language

Multiple sources report that the Iran war is the dominant substantive issue at the New Delhi talks, and that members are sharply divided. The disagreements have limited BRICS’s ability to issue a unified statement on the conflict, according to several accounts. Iran, which joined BRICS in the 2024 expansion, sits opposite newly added Gulf states with competing security and political stakes. Some members, including Russia and China, have been described as broadly sympathetic to Tehran’s strategic autonomy, while India has taken a more cautious posture because of its strategic ties with the United States and Israel, and its economic and energy links to Gulf partners.

The lack of common ground has shown up in drafting. One report said at least three draft statements were circulated, and multiple versions were rejected amid internal divisions. That same account said Iran formally asked New Delhi to back a condemnation of US and Israeli actions, a request that met resistance from other BRICS capitals. A separate opinion piece advanced a different narrative entirely, asserting that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was assassinated more than 20 days ago. That claim is noted as a single-source assertion and isn't repeated elsewhere in the coverage.

India’s balancing act and the wider stakes

Sources frame India’s position as a diplomatic dilemma. New Delhi wants to steer BRICS toward a collective stance, but it also must preserve its own multialigned relationships. India has sustained ties with Tehran through connectivity projects such as Chabahar port, and it depends on Gulf states for energy and for remittances from almost 10 million Indians working in the region. Those facts are cited across accounts as constraints on how far India can move against Gulf partners while chairing the bloc.

Mastheads

The Iran conflict has also emphasised energy-security risks. Analysts cited in one piece note that around half of India’s crude oil and LNG imports, and nearly 40 percent of China’s oil supplies, transit the Strait of Hormuz. That raises the economic stakes of any sustained disruption to Gulf shipping. Policy discussions in New Delhi continue to include economic cooperation and institutional initiatives, such as alternative financial mechanisms, which several sources say have gained renewed attention.

Members are interested in reducing dependence on Western financial systems amid sanction risks, even as they wrangle over geopolitical language.

The BRICS of 2025 looks different from earlier years. After the 2024 expansion that brought in Iran and the UAE and explored Saudi accession, the grouping is larger and more geopolitically heterogeneous. That enlargement has introduced fresh fault lines between members prioritising economic cooperation and those focused on regional security alignments. The meeting in New Delhi seeks to manage those tensions while keeping the BRICS project operational.

One source also flagged a diplomatic coincidence: the timing of the New Delhi meeting overlaps with United States President Donald Trump’s state visit to China. That detail appears in a single account and isn't a recurring theme across other reports, but it underlines the complex calendar of great-power diplomacy that surrounds the BRICS talks.

For India the immediate test is practical. Chairing the bloc, New Delhi must decide how hard to push for collective language on a subject that divides its partners, and how much to preserve flexibility in bilateral relationships that it judges vital to its interests. The ministers’ meeting is where such lines will be drawn, or blurred, ahead of September’s leaders’ summit.

Related Articles

The ministers’ meeting ends on Friday May 15. Whether it produces a joint text will be an early barometer for unity at India’s leaders’ summit in September.

This article was created with AI assistance.