NEW DELHI: With divisions over the West Asia conflict remaining to be bridged, foreign ministers of the emerging economies of the BRICS bloc will gather in New Delhi on May 14 and 15 for a high-stakes meeting.
The meeting is expected to test the grouping’s ability to maintain consensus on a key issue amid growing geopolitical fault lines.
Diplomatic sources said the chances of the meeting concluding with a joint statement remain uncertain, with sharp differences between Iran and the United Arab Emirates emerging as a major obstacle.
The tensions stem from the recent US-Israel attack on Iran and the return attacks on energy infrastructure in the UAE, and the language to be used in the joint statement.
“In the absence of a joint statement, we will have to come up with a chair statement which will showcase respective country positions. But efforts are on for a consensus,” said an official.
The disagreements had already derailed efforts to adopt a common statement during a meeting of senior BRICS officials on the Middle East and North Africa region held on April 23-24, signalling the challenges facing India as it prepares to assume the BRICS chairmanship in 2026.
The two-day foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi will be chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and attended by ministers and senior representatives from BRICS member and partner countries.
The visiting delegations will also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will skip the meeting due to scheduling overlaps with US President Donald Trump’s visit to China, several key ministers are expected to attend, including Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Araghchi is also scheduled to hold a series of meetings in New Delhi, including talks with Jaishankar, as India seeks to balance ties with competing regional powers while positioning itself as a bridge-builder within BRICS.
Jaishankar is also expected to meet Lavrov and his counterparts from Brazil, South Africa and the Maldives on the sidelines of the gathering.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, discussions during the meeting will focus on global and regional developments, with ministers expected to exchange views on security challenges, economic cooperation and multilateral reform.
On the second day, BRICS members and partner countries will participate in a session titled “BRICS@20: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, followed by discussions on reforming global governance institutions and the multilateral system.
The meeting comes at a significant moment for the bloc, which has expanded rapidly in recent years to include countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE alongside its original members.
Diplomatic sources said the inability to forge consensus on West Asia could expose the limits of BRICS cohesion even as the grouping seeks a larger role in shaping global political and economic governance.
India will host the BRICS summit in September.
