Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in New Delhi on Friday for the 18th BRICS Summit, his first visit to India since taking office, and moved straight into a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the same day. Speaking before he left Tehran, Pezeshkian said the goal of BRICS is to confront unilateralism, adding that the bloc needs new approaches to reduce totalitarianism in the world as it tackles complex economic questions. He also framed the gathering’s themes as independence, solidarity, sustainability, resistance and innovation, with economic, financial, industrial and trade issues on the table.
What He’s Asking Modi For
The visit carries more than ceremony. During the Delhi meeting, Pezeshkian asked Modi to use India’s extensive contacts with various parties to help move things away from the path of war and bloodshed and back toward dialogue and agreement, pointing to India’s standing in the region and its long historical and cultural ties with Iran. It’s Pezeshkian’s second meeting with Modi since the war with the US and Israel began — the two last spoke on August 31 on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, after which Modi said New Delhi wanted to deepen its relationship with Tehran and expand economic ties. President Droupadi Murmu is also due to meet the Iranian leader separately.
A Summit Already Split Before It Starts
Pezeshkian’s presence is expected to push the multilateral bloc toward taking a stand against the US military campaign against Iran — a position Saudi Arabia and the UAE are likely to resist. The friction has a personal edge this year: his visit comes just after Iran’s latest strikes on the UAE, and his time in Delhi overlaps with Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, representing the UAE leadership, raising the possibility of a public clash between the two delegations over the West Asia conflict. Iran and the UAE have so far been unable to agree on common diplomatic language for the summit’s Delhi Declaration, a fault line that has already stalled BRICS statements once this year.
The Bigger Picture
The 18th summit runs September 12–13 under India’s chairship, themed “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability,” with Putin having arrived earlier Friday and Xi Jinping due Saturday morning. Collectively, the now-11-member bloc accounts for roughly half the world’s population, about 40 percent of global GDP and a quarter of global trade — scale that makes the question of whether Delhi can secure any unified language on the war one of the summit’s central tests.
