BRICS leaders gather in Delhi as the declaration stalls on the Iran war

The 18th BRICS Summit opens in New Delhi on Saturday with the bloc's most awkward guest list in years and no agreed text on the war that has closed the Strait of Hormuz.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is in India for the first time since 2019. Russian President Vladimir Putin is making his first in-person appearance at a BRICS summit held outside Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is in Delhi on the first visit by an Iranian head of state in more than eight years. They join Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Bharat Mandapam under India's 2026 chairship theme, "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability."

Diplomatic sources told Indian reporters on Friday that member states had accepted "almost all the text" of the planned New Delhi Declaration. One paragraph remained open. It concerns how the grouping should describe the war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, and how it should treat Iranian attacks on installations in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere in West Asia. Saudi Arabia and the UAE sit in the same room as Iran. That is new. It is also why the paragraph has not closed.

Who is in the hall

BRICS now has 11 members: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Partner countries are also represented. Besides Xi, Putin and Pezeshkian, the schedule lists South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and several invited heads of government, including Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim.

The closed session for members is listed for Saturday afternoon under the title "Inclusive Global Governance and Strengthening Multilateralism." An open session, "Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability: Shaping the Future for Inclusive Global Growth," is scheduled for 10:50 a.m. The declaration is meant to close the meeting on Sunday.

Friday's bilateral ledger

Modi used Friday to lock in the relationships that matter most to New Delhi before Xi arrives for a separate bilateral.

With Putin, the two sides set a target of $100 billion in annual bilateral trade by 2030, up from about $65 billion now. They agreed to expand work on defence, critical minerals, civil nuclear energy and fertiliser supply. Modi raised the safety of Indian seafarers in the Black Sea. Putin invited him to Russia for the 24th annual bilateral summit. Modi accepted. Dates will be set through diplomatic channels. Putin told the Business Forum that BRICS "is not against anyone" and that Moscow remains open to working with the whole world. He also said Russia has been hit with more than 30,000 sanctions, which he described as more than double the restrictions applied to all other countries combined.

With Pezeshkian, the Ministry of External Affairs said the two men discussed freedom of navigation, commerce, and the safety of seafarers. That is a coded way of talking about Hormuz and the Red Sea at once. Pezeshkian told the Business Forum that the grouping's weight should be measured by whether it can turn capacity into joint work, not by the size of its economies alone.

Modi also met United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. At the Business Forum he put three figures on the table that the chair wants repeated all weekend: BRICS countries, he said, account for 50 percent of world population, 40 percent of GDP and more than 25 percent of global trade. Combined BRICS GDP, he added, has grown about four-and-a-half times over the life of the grouping, against a two-and-a-half-times rise in world GDP.

What the chair cannot paper over

India wants the summit to look like a development meeting. The war makes that hard. Iran wants language that treats the US and Israel as aggressors. Gulf members want language that records Iranian strikes on their territory. Russia wants the text to attack sanctions. China wants the border with India kept off the public agenda while Xi and Modi meet on the Line of Actual Control, trade restrictions and the state of the relationship after seven thin years.

Xi is due to address the summit and hold that bilateral at Bharat Mandapam. Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Mao Ning said the Chinese leader would discuss "the international situation, the development of BRICS mechanisms and ways to deepen practical cooperation." That is the official line. The practical question in Delhi is whether the two capitals can keep the LAC quiet enough for the photo to hold.

Security in the capital has been thickened for the weekend. Thousands of additional personnel are on the roads around Pragati Maidan.

What to watch on Saturday

Three things will tell readers whether the summit produced more than a group photograph. First, whether a Delhi Declaration appears at all, and whether the Iran paragraph is published, footnoted or dropped. Second, whether Modi and Xi announce any concrete step on patrols, flights or restricted goods. Third, whether India and Russia put a date on the next annual summit, which would turn Friday's invitation into a calendar item.

The grouping has grown faster than its ability to speak with one voice about wars that split its own members. Saturday is the test of whether that gap can be written around, or whether it will be written into the text.