The US-Israel war on Iran is set to dominate a two-day meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in New Delhi, India, starting Thursday, as the bloc of developing countries struggles to produce a joint statement while its members are split by the conflict. The gathering, running through May 14–15, is being tested by the very forces that claim to manage global order: war, blockade, energy disruption, and the diplomatic theater built to contain them.
Who Pays for the Power Games
Iran had urged India, the BRICS chair for 2026, to use the platform to build a consensus condemning US and Israeli actions in the Gulf conflict. Instead, the meeting arrives under the shadow of a war that began on February 28, when the US and Israel launched a war on Iran. After that, Iran began lobbing missiles and drones at Gulf countries, deepening the regional crisis and exposing how quickly elite decisions at the top turn into danger for people below.
The main differences inside the bloc have emerged between the United Arab Emirates and Iran. It was not immediately clear who would represent the UAE during the meeting. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is likely to arrive late on Wednesday to attend the gathering, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is also expected to attend. China will be represented by its Ambassador to India Xu Feihong, filling in for Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is unlikely to travel with US President Donald Trump visiting Beijing this week.
What They Call Consensus
Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in March that some BRICS members were involved directly in the conflict, making it “difficult for us to forge a consensus.” That is the language of the apparatus when its members cannot paper over the contradictions created by war and competing state interests. Another ministry official told Reuters that India was hopeful it would get a joint statement after the latest round of meetings with foreign ministers.
Former Indian diplomat Manjeev Singh Puri offered the usual polished optimism of institutional diplomacy, saying, “Glad that the foreign ministers from all the BRICS countries, except China who is otherwise tied up, are coming. This is a good sign on efforts to build a BRICS coalition around a matter of interest to emerging economies and the global south,” and added, “Of course political solutions are difficult but the fact that they are meeting is positive and hopefully it will lead to a way forward.”
But the meeting is not happening in a vacuum. Soaring energy prices caused by Iran largely closing the Strait of Hormuz have thrown global markets into turmoil. The US later imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports in response. The blockade over the key waterway has prompted many BRICS nations, including India, to introduce emergency measures to protect their economies and consumers. The costs of these decisions land far from the conference tables where ministers trade statements and posture for a “way forward.”
The Regional Order Breaks Down
During the fighting, the UAE and other Gulf states did not join the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, though a report Monday claimed the Emirates and Saudi Arabia had quietly struck Iranian military and energy sites in early April, a revelation liable to raise tensions. That report adds another layer to the region’s already unstable hierarchy of alliances, where public neutrality and private coordination can sit side by side.
So far, China has taken a nominally neutral stance, given its robust ties with both Iran and Sunni-majority Arab states. That balancing act is part of the same diplomatic machinery now trying to keep BRICS unified while its members are pulled in opposite directions by war, sanctions, blockades, and energy shocks.
The forum in New Delhi is therefore less a show of unity than a stress test for a bloc trying to speak for “developing countries” while its own members are caught inside the machinery of imperial conflict and state retaliation. The ministers are meeting, but the crisis shaping the meeting was made elsewhere, by powers that do not answer to the people paying the price.