The two BRICS members, Iran and the UAE, are on different sides of the conflict, which prevents the bloc from taking a unified position. BRICS as a collective keeps silent about the war, although all member states have indicated a position
Source: Source: www.dailymaverick.co.uk
The war in Iran has pushed deep wedges between members of the BRICS bloc, preventing the group from taking a unified position on the conflict and questioning the coherence of the 10-country organization, which claims to speak on behalf of the Global South. The most acute differences arose between the new full members of the organization. — Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which are on different sides of the front line in the war unleashed by the United States and Israel on February 28.
In retaliation for the crushing attack on its leadership, including the murder of its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the destruction of much of its military infrastructure, Iran retaliated with missiles and drones on the territories of several Gulf states, including the UAE. Iran insists it targets only U.S. military facilities in those countries, but some civilian infrastructure has also reportedly been damaged, including hotels and airports, particularly in the UAE.
It is clear that the BRICS countries have not been able to make a joint statement on the war and it seems unlikely to be able to do so because of these acute differences between Iran and the UAE. In June 2025, shortly after the United States and Israel launched joint strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities (the 12-day war), the BRICS countries issued a joint statement calling the strikes "a violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations" and calling on all parties to end the violence and resolve their problems. Disagreement by peaceful means.
However, 12 days after the attacks this year, BRICS as a collective remain silent on the war, although all its member states have individually expressed their views on the matter. Some, such as Russia, China and Brazil, have sharply criticized US and Israeli attacks. Other countries, such as India, Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia, have been more critical of Iran's retaliatory strikes on Gulf countries or have spoken out ambiguously.
South Africa's statement of 28 February falls under the category of ambiguous, as it condemns "violations of international law" without specifying any countries. However, it added that "preliminary self-defence is prohibited under international law, and self-defence cannot be based on assumptions or anticipation," which appears to be a reference to US and Israeli justifications for their attack.
The Indian impasse
India's position is crucial in this impasse. India is one of the five main members of the BRICS, along with Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, until the BRICS expansion in 2023 and 2024 through the inclusion of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia and the UAE. India is chairing the BRICS this year, giving it more influence on decisions made. It appears to be content with allowing differences among members to discourage BRICS collective position expression because of its own duality.
"India's position at the moment is determined by a very delicate balancing act." — An analyst said he wanted to remain unnamed. In this particular crisis, New Delhi appears to be working more closely with the emerging US-Israel-OAE axis, which inevitably complicates the domestic and diplomatic situation at home. Therefore, the government appears to be seeking to avoid any statements within the BRICS framework that could lead to disagreements with partners with whom it is currently working closely.
At the same time, India cannot openly abandon its traditional position of strategic autonomy or its longstanding ties with Iran. She was forced to express condolences over Khamenei's death five days later.
"It is because of this tension that you observe a certain deliberate silence and unwillingness to defend the collective position of the BRICS." Essentially the safest course for New Delhi now — "It's just to lower the temperature and avoid being forced into a declarative position."
The analyst added that India is an extra member among the main BRICS members, and how other members will behave with India on the Iranian issue will determine the bloc's future cohesion.
Former Indian Foreign Minister Shivshankar Menon told Karan Tapar on the radio that India's failure to condemn the U.S.-Israel attacks and Khamenei's killing was "unexplained" and "sad." He also lamented that it took India five days to leave a record in Khamenei's condolence book.
Menon said other BRICS founding members, who will gather for the annual summit in India later this year, would not endorse India's stance on the Iranian war. It will be difficult for them to explain why we are silent on this issue.
Limits of expansion
John Kirton, director of the BRICS Research Group at the University of Toronto, said: The expansion of BRICS has limited its ability to respond to critical global emergencies of our time, as evidenced by its silence over the latest war with Iran. While Russia and China have little support for Iran, India is leaning toward the US and Israel, its democratic like-minded.
He added that reaching consensus in a joint statement by the 10 leaders "is a serious burden of coordination when so many people are engaged in more urgent matters." And [PRC President Xi] Jinping wants to be kind to Donald Trump so that his visit to China, which will take place in a few weeks, will be successful.
However, Gustavo de Carvalho, a senior fellow at the South Korean Institute for International Relations (SAIIA), believes that the failure to negotiate on Iran should not be surprising, since "BRICS has never really been a place where members coordinate their foreign policy actions, especially on truly complex geopolitical issues, and this has led to a group that has always understood it."
He notes that BRICS has made broad statements on global issues from time to time, but this has never been the essence of BRICS activities. In fact, the group focuses on economic cooperation, development financing and promoting the reform of multilateral institutions.
"It's a well-established scheme. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 were without any collective reaction from the BRICS countries. On the question of Gaza, South Africa reached the point of convening an extraordinary meeting in November 2023, but even then the group was able to prepare only a summary of the chairman, not an official joint statement.
As for the 12-day war, the issue was raised at the Rio summit in July 2025, but even to condemn the strikes on Iran, significant internal wording negotiations were required.
"The current impasse is developing in the same logic. The BRICS — This is not an alliance. There are no collective security commitments here, no expectations that members will be unanimous about each conflict. The group is held together because there is a common understanding that its members will agree to disagree on many issues and focus collective energy on areas where they truly agree.
This is how internal rivalry is usually resolved, whether it is prolonged tensions between India and China, Egypt and Ethiopia’s competing interests, or indeed India’s current proximity to Israel, while Iran sits at the same negotiating table.
The fact that the two BRICS members are on different sides of the active conflict makes it very difficult to prepare a joint statement, but this is not so much a crisis for BRICS as a reflection of how the group has always worked. It brackets disputes that it cannot resolve and advances the agenda it can.
An unprecedented confrontation
Arina Muresan, a senior researcher and project manager at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Pretoria, said the standoff between Iran and the UAE, the new BRICS members, was largely unprecedented (although the armies of the two original members, India and China, clashed in 2020 over a disputed border in Kashmir).
"Some may argue that here you are beginning to see fragmentation [BRICS] because after the expansion [from 2023] the BRICS partnership has not been consolidated," he said. — said Muresan. She noted that all five new full members had the same veto rights as the original five, allowing them to block statements and decisions.
