Iran slams UAE as West Asia conflict casts shadow on BRICS foreign ministers meet

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said a demand by one member country of the BRICS to condemn Iran has prevented the grouping from reaching a unified position on the West Asia conflict.

New Delhi: The conflict in West Asia is likely to cast a shadow over the meeting of the BRICS foreign ministers in New Delhi on Thursday and Friday, with Tehran accusing the United Arab Emirates of stalling a consensus within the bloc about the war launched by Israel and the United States against Iran.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will host the meeting of the BRICS foreign ministers in New Delhi. Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi arrived in New Delhi late on Wednesday, although it was not clarified who would represent the UAE at the meeting, which would commence on Thursday and would end on Friday.

Araghchi will have a bilateral meeting with Jaishankar and call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, himself, will travel to Abu Dhabi and meet President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE.

Tehran’s relations with Abu Dhabi turned sour after Iran responded to attacks by Israel and the US by targeting the UAE and other neighbouring nations, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, whom it accused of facilitating the offensives against it.

“We want India's BRICS chairmanship to be successful. It is not a good approach to send a signal to the world that the BRICS is divided. One country is insisting on condemning Iran,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said in New Delhi, signalling a lack of consensus within the bloc.

“We have not attacked neighbouring countries,” Gharibabadi told journalists in New Delhi hours before Araghchi flew in from Tehran on Wednesday. “They handed their territories to the US to launch an attack on us. We never insisted that Arab countries should be condemned as they allowed their military bases to the US.”

The lack of consensus within the BRICS had also come to the fore when the deputy foreign ministers of the member nations of the bloc, as well as their special envoys for West Asia, had met in New Delhi last month. The meeting had ended with India releasing a “chair’s statement” following the talks, reflecting that a consensus on a joint outcome document could not be reached.

The statement noted that the participants had “expressed deep concern over the recent conflict in the Middle East and shared views and assessments on the situation”. The statement avoided naming Iran or condemning the initial attacks by Israel and the US or the retaliatory strikes by Iran.

Iran has been nudging India, the current chair of the BRICS, since the early days of the conflict to get the bloc – seen as a grouping of developing nations and often criticised by US President Donald Trump – to condemn the offensive launched by Israel and the US.

The BRIC comprised Brazil, Russia, India, and China until its first expansion in 2010-11, when it was renamed BRICS and included South Africa. It added Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as new members in 2023-24. Argentina later withdrew its application for BRICS membership after Javier Milei became president in December 2023. Saudi Arabia delayed its process of joining the bloc, which is perceived as a counterweight to the G7. Indonesia joined the BRICS in January 2025.

The meeting of the BRICS foreign ministers will have a session on “BRICS@20: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, followed by another on “Reforms of Global Governance and Multilateral System”.