The United States (US)-Israeli war on \u200bIran is set to cast a shadow over a two-day meeting of the foreign ministers \u200cof the d Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) grouping that kicks off in New Delhi on Thursday, testing the bloc’s ability to reach a unified position and produce a joint statement.<\/p>\n
The grouping, which originally include BRICS, has expanded over the years with \u200bthe inclusion of Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).<\/p>\n
Iran had urged India, the BRICS \u200bchair for 2026, to use the BRICS platform to build a consensus condemning US \u2060and Israeli actions in the Gulf conflict.<\/p>\n
The main differences have emerged between Iran and the United Arab \u200bEmirates, which are on opposing sides of the front line in a war launched by the US and Israel \u200bon February 28.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is likely to arrive late on Wednesday to attend the gathering, which will run through May 14\u201315. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is also expected to attend the meeting.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear who will represent \u200bthe UAE during the meeting. The latest round could be tense after reports that UAE and Saudi Arabia carried \u200bout military strikes on Iran in retaliation for Iranian strikes.<\/p>\n
Indian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had said in March that \u200csome BRICS \u2060members were involved directly in the conflict, due to which it had been “difficult for us to forge a consensus.”<\/p>\n
Another Ministry official told Reuters India was hopeful to get a joint statement after the latest round of meetings with foreign ministers.<\/p>\n
“Glad that the foreign ministers from all the BRICS countries, except China who is otherwise \u200btied up, are coming. This \u200bis a good sign \u2060on efforts to build a BRICS coalition around a matter of interest to emerging economies and the global south,” said former Indian Diplomat Manjeev Singh Puri.<\/p>\n
“Of course \u200bpolitical solutions are difficult but the fact that they are meeting is positive \u200band hopefully \u2060it will lead to a way forward.”
\nSoaring energy prices caused by the war have prompted many BRICS nations, including India, to introduce emergency measures to protect their economies and consumers.<\/p>\n
So far China has taken a nominally neutral stance, \u2060given its \u200brobust ties with both Iran and Sunni-majority Arab states.<\/p>\n
China will \u200bbe represented by its Ambassador to India Xu Feihong to fill in for their Foreign Minister Wang Yi who is unlikely to travel \u200bwith US President Donald Trump visiting Beijing this week.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-34380","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Iran had urged India, the BRICS \u200bchair for 2026, to use the BRICS platform to build a consensus condemning US \u2060and Israeli actions in the Gulf conflict.","published_date":"","news_description":"Iran had urged India, the BRICS \u200bchair for 2026, to use the BRICS platform to build a consensus condemning US \u2060and Israeli actions in the Gulf conflict.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34381,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34380\/revisions\/34381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}