New Delhi: After negotiations that stretched into the early hours, leaders of BRICS, the bloc of major emerging economies, on Saturday (September 12) agreed on a joint statement that avoided condemning any country over the US-Israeli war against Iran and named neither side, allowing both Iran and the United Arab Emirates to sign onto the text.The 140-paragraph New Delhi Declaration, one of the longest joint statements issued by the grouping, was adopted on the opening day of the 18th BRICS summit at Bharat Mandapam, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing its adoption at the conclusion of his remarks.As The Wire reported earlier, negotiations continued into the early hours of Saturday as India, the current chair, worked to bridge differences among members over the war that began in February with US-Israel strikes on Iran and later expanded into Iranian counter-strikes on Gulf countries hosting US military facilities.Last year, the joint statement issued at the Rio de Janeiro Summit had explicitly condemned the US and Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, which was known as the 12-day war.However, the Iran war this year had a different dynamic, as it turned into a regional conflagration once Tehran started to target facilities in Gulf neighbours – which meant that a return of last year’s text was not possible, with UAE also a member of the expanded BRICS and a vocal critic of Tehran’s attacks on its facilities.If Iran had retained language condemning the attacks on Iran, then UAE would want mention of condemnation of Iranian attacks on Gulf countries. Neither demand found its way into the final text.Iran-UAE differences force a carefully worded compromiseThe section on the war ran to two paragraphs, neither of which mentioned Iran, the United States or Israel by name – and referred to the fighting with a generic phrase.“We express deep concern over the continued escalation of tensions in Middle East/West Asia and, recalling our respective national positions, call for exercising maximum restraint, as well as avoiding actions that could further aggravate the situation,” the declaration said.The leaders urged the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure in accordance with the UN Charter, “including respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the States”. The plural framing left the phrase open to applicability to both Iran and Gulf states alike.The text encouraged “increasing efforts, through dialogue and diplomacy, towards a long-term understanding that will contribute to lasting peace, security and stability in the region”. It also stressed “the need to work together to maintain smooth flow of global trade, supply chains and energy, in accordance with applicable international law”.The following paragraph carries forward language from the 2025 Rio declaration, expressing “serious concern over deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure and peaceful nuclear facilities under full safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)”. It adds that nuclear safeguards, safety and security must be upheld even during armed conflicts.The compromise on Iran came against a backdrop of the unusual high-level meeting between Tehran and Abu Dhabi at the summit itself. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, on the sidelines of Saturday’s proceedings, in what appeared to be the senior-most contact between the two countries since the war began.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the BRICS Summit in New Delhi, India, Saturday, September 12, 2026. Photo: Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin/Pool Photo via APAccording to the UAE readout, the two discussed regional and international issues and “underscored the importance of supporting efforts to ease tensions, promote de-escalation and strengthen regional stability”, while also discussing opportunities for peace and development in the region.The meeting also comes ahead of Iran’s meeting in Oman with Gulf states to discuss the Strait of Hormuz, where commercial shipping has remained severely disrupted – including a sharp reduction in oil exports from the region – because of the war.Just three months earlier, at the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi in May, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had accused the UAE of complicity in the war by allowing US to use its territory to launch attacks on Iran Another Iranian official had even called the Gulf kingdom as “an aggressor, not merely an accomplice to aggression”. Iran had also blamed the UAE for blocking consensus on a joint statement.Pezeshkian, however, did not repeat those accusations in his address to BRICS leaders on Saturday. His speech was sharply critical of the US and Israel, but made no reference to the UAE or other Gulf countries.But in a veiled reference to its Gulf neighbours, he also said that “sustainable security can no longer be defined on the basis of security for some and insecurity for others”.“Lasting security is achieved when the sovereignty of States is respected and no State can use its territory to threaten and attack another,” he said.While the declaration extended only “deep concern” to the war in Iran and the Gulf, it was considerably less guarded elsewhere in the text.At 140 paragraphs, compared with 126 in Rio, it is longer, but substantial portions retain the language and structure of the 2025 declaration, in some cases almost verbatim.The carry-over is particularly visible in the opening section, the language on UN Security Council reform, multipolarity and the Global South, conflict prevention and diplomacy, unilateral sanctions, Lebanon and terrorism. At the same time, the changes are concentrated around issues where the diplomatic landscape has shifted since Rio, including Iran, Gaza, Ukraine, Haiti and Cuba.Gaza and Lebanon retain language on Israel, civilians and territorial sovereigntyThe Palestine section shows how the New Delhi declaration updates the language of the Rio text while retaining much of its underlying position.On Palestine, the leaders condemned “all violations” of international humanitarian law, including “the use of starvation as a method of warfare, attacks targeting civilians and civilian objects, including healthcare facilities and other civilian infrastructure, as well as the unlawful obstruction of humanitarian access.” They also condemned attempts “to politicize or militarize humanitarian assistance.”Some of the updates reflected how the ground situation itself had shifted since Rio. A ceasefire was agreed in October 2025, built on a US-brokered plan that the UN Security Council endorsed a month earlier through Resolution 2803, which authorised a transitional “Board of Peace” and an international stabilisation force for Gaza. Two BRICS members, Russia and China, had abstained rather than vote for that resolution. The New Delhi declaration nonetheless took note of its adoption and called on “all parties” to maintain the truce and ensure humanitarian access.Statehood, occupation and Jerusalem remain in the BRICS textNew Delhi does, however, retain some of Rio’s strongest language. It expresses firm opposition to the forced displacement of Palestinians and to geographic or demographic changes to Gaza, and says international law and international judicial bodies demand an end to the occupation and practices that obstruct a just and lasting peace.The declaration reaffirms Palestinians’ rights to self-determination and return, supports full UN membership for the State of Palestine and reiterates the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as part of a sovereign Palestinian state. It also calls for Palestinian representation in international organisations and access to their resources.But New Delhi drops two substantive elements that were present in Rio. Rio had called for the West Bank and Gaza to be unified under the Palestinian Authority, and separately called for international support for Palestinian Authority reforms and the reconstruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure with a central Palestinian role. Those formulations do not appear in the New Delhi declaration.The declaration retains Rio’s references to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel, supports UNRWA and condemns violations of international humanitarian law, including starvation, attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and obstruction of aid.Israel is named only three times in the entire declaration, and even then, only in passing without any direct condemnation of its actions. Two references come in the sentence on the ICJ proceedings brought by South Africa, while the third is in the paragraph on Lebanon, where the leaders call on Israel to respect the terms agreed to with the Lebanese government, and to withdraw its occupying forces.The paragraph on Lebanon also carries one of the declaration’s clearest condemnations, of “continued violations of the ceasefire and of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon”.It also condemned “all attacks against” the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, language with no precedent in either of BRICS’s two previous declarations, the 2024 summit in Kazan, Russia, and the 2025 one in Rio. It extended condolences for “the loss of four Indonesian as well as other peacekeepers serving under UNIFIL”, and demanded accountability for those responsible.Those four deaths came in a single 48-hour span in late March, when UNIFIL’s Indonesian contingent was hit twice in the villages of Aadchit al-Qusayr and Bani Hayyan in southern Lebanon. A UN investigation found that a March 29 strike was caused by a 120 mm shell fired from an Israeli tank, while a subsequent incident involving a UNIFIL convoy was assessed as most probably caused by a device planted by Hezbollah.With India as chair, it was unsurprising that the declaration again condemned “in the strongest terms” the attack in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, 2025, in language reproduced from the Rio declaration.BRICS condemns unilateral sanctions, secondary sanctions and trade barriersThe declaration also took a strong position against unilateral economic coercion, including language that could have implications for countries facing US sanctions. It “condemn[ed] the imposition of unilateral coercive measures that are contrary to international law” and specifically referred to “unilateral economic sanctions and secondary sanctions”. Such measures, it said, had far-reaching negative implications for human rights, including the right to development, health and food security, particularly for poor and vulnerable populations.The leaders also expressed “serious concerns” over the rise of unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures that distort trade and are inconsistent with WTO rules. They warned that protectionism “under the guise of environmental objectives” could reduce global trade, disrupt supply chains and deepen existing economic disparities. The declaration went further still, opposing unilateral, punitive or discriminatory climate measures such as carbon border adjustment mechanisms by name, making clear that the bloc’s objections were not confined to conventional tariffs.Ukraine and Haiti disappear as BRICS expresses concern on Cuba blockadeElsewhere, the declaration’s departures from Rio and Kazan were about the wider diplomatic map. Ukraine, which had drawn a dedicated paragraph in both the Kazan and Rio declarations recalling members’ “national positions” and welcoming mediation proposals, did not feature in the New Delhi text at all.Haiti, which had also featured in both of those declarations, was absent too. So was Afghanistan, though that comparison runs back further. Afghanistan had a paragraph in the Kazan declaration in 2024, urging a peaceful settlement and the protection of women’s and girls’ education, but Rio had already dropped it the following year. New Delhi did not revive it.In their place, the declaration added its first-ever standalone paragraph on Cuba, expressing “deep concern” over the tightening of unilateral blockade measures against the island and their economic, energy and humanitarian consequences, and calling for the measures to be lifted in line with a UN General Assembly resolution. Cuba became a BRICS partner country in January 2025.New language appeared elsewhere too. The leaders said they “deplore” attempts, “including by deliberately withholding assessed contributions”, to unilaterally undermine multilateral institutions, a line that named no country but pointed to ongoing funding disputes at the UN over the United States failing to pay its dues.A fresh paragraph noted that no woman has ever been elected UN Secretary-General, and that only one Secretary-General has come from Latin America and the Caribbean, and only two each from Africa and Asia. The line lands amid an active race to choose Guterres’s successor. Eight candidates remain as of this summer, all from Latin America, the Caribbean or Africa under the UN’s informal regional rotation, and two of them, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan, could become the first woman to hold the post.The declaration also reiterated BRICS’ longstanding call for reform of the UN Security Council, including greater representation of developing countries. It specifically said China and Russia support “Brazil and India to play a greater role in the United Nations, including its Security Council”.The formulation, however, is not new. The same language about “greater role” has appeared in all previous BRICS joint statements – and it clearly falls short of any endorsement by the bloc of permanent Security Council seats for Brazil or India.The leaders called for comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including the Security Council, to make it “more democratic, representative, effective and efficient”, and for greater representation of developing countries in the Council. The declaration also said the reform should amplify the voice of the Global SouthEchoing the Kazan declaration, South Africa, which is part of the G4 with India, Brazil and German, was again dropped from the line about bigger involvement in UN this time.But, in another place, the bloc hardened its defence of the G20’s composition, underscoring “the status of South Africa as a G20 founding country and a full-fledged member” and the “inadmissibility of arbitrary revision” of its membership. The language followed US President Donald Trump’s announcement in November that South Africa would not be invited to the 2026 G20 summit in Miami, a threat Pretoria has rejected as it continues to insist on its founding-member status.This story was updated with additional information at 6:43 pm on Sunday.