New Delhi: Eight years after the last visit to India by an Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian will arrive in New Delhi on Friday afternoon for a two-day visit that comes as India seeks to bridge differences between Tehran and the United Arab Emirates over the war in Iran and salvage a consensus BRICS declaration.Pezeshkian is expected to arrive in Delhi at 2 pm, ahead of a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. His visit comes just ten days after the two leaders met in Bishkek on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, their first face-to-face meeting since the war began in February and their first meeting since Pezeshkian became president.The last Iranian president to visit India was Hassan Rouhani, who travelled to New Delhi in February 2018. Before him, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited India in April 2013, while former president Mohammad Khatami made a state visit in January 2003 to be the chief guest at Republic Day parade.His visit is taking place against the backdrop of an unusually difficult diplomatic tangle for India as chair of an expanded BRICS. The grouping has so far failed to adopt a common statement on the war in Iran, even as the conflict has become one of the most consequential issues confronting its members.The Iranian president’s presence at the summit will put him in the same forum as Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, who is representing the UAE. Iran and the UAE have found themselves on opposing sides of the regional confrontation, with the UAE seeking condemnation of Iranian attacks on Gulf countries even as Tehran wants BRICS to condemn the attacks on Iran.At the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi in May, disagreements between Iran and the UAE over the war prevented the adoption of a joint declaration, with India instead issuing a Chair’s Statement.The same difficulty surfaced at other BRICS ministerial and senior-official meetings. Meetings of trade ministers, communication ministers and the BRICS deputy foreign ministers and special envoys on the Middle East and North Africa have also resulted in Chair’s Statements, rather than joint statements when consensus could not be reached.The problem is particularly significant ahead of the leaders’ summit because every previous BRICS summit has ended with a final declaration. A failure to produce one in New Delhi would therefore mark an unusual break with the grouping’s established practice.India has previously acknowledged the difficulty of securing a unified BRICS position on the conflict.At Bishkek, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters India was aware of the different views among BRICS members and that its leaders, ministers and senior officials were in touch with their counterparts.“We will remain so till the time the summit is concluded,” Misri had said, expressing hope that India would be able to arrive at “a very constructive outcome” benefiting all BRICS members.Earlier this month, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation managed to reach a common position at its summit in Bishkek earlier this month. Its declaration, endorsed by India, Iran, Russia and China among others, condemned military strikes on Iran and said the conflict should be resolved “solely through political and diplomatic means”.The SCO declaration, however, stopped short of naming the United States and Israel as responsible for the strikes. It also reiterated support for Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.The formulation provided a way for India, Iran, Russia and China to endorse language on the war despite their differing positions on various aspects of the conflict. But it cannot be used as a template for BRICS because the UAE is not a member of the SCO.