Forging a consensus and adopting a collectively agreed declaration at the BRICS Summit 2026 in New Delhi was arguably the organisation's most significant breakthrough — notable precisely because its member states carry entrenched political differences and competing positions on numerous regional and geopolitical issues. That Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), two regional rivals, both backed this joint declaration itself a major achievement for India’s diplomacy, underscoring New Delhi’s ability to bring divergent voices to common ground even before the two sides met separately. The outcome signals India's capacity to bridge such fault lines at a moment when the global order itself is fragmenting, marked by conventional conflict alongside non-traditional economic warfare: The Russia-Ukraine war, the ongoing West Asian conflict, and trade-tariff disputes between the US and countries across the globe. Against this backdrop, an equally consequential outcome of the summit was the Iran-UAE bilateral meeting on the sidelines.
