Last weekend the 18th summit of the BRICS countries took place in the Indian capital New Delhi. A joint final declaration demonstrates unity. At the same time, contradictions in the Iran question remain unspoken and the Ukraine war is not even made an issue.

Last Sunday, the 18th summit meeting of the BRICS countries came to an end. The ten member states and many other invited government representatives met on the weekend of September 12th and 13th to discuss political and economic issues. This year the host was the Indian state, and the meeting was held in the capital New Delhi.

The BRICS themselves were initially convened in 2009 as a loose association of states as a counterweight to the Western-influenced G7 summits. Since then, Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa have played the decisive role in the unification. At the same time, the BRICS countries reject being portrayed as an anti-Western allianceexplicitly.

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BRICS summit marked by wars and crises

Against the backdrop of the Iran war launched by the USA in February, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Iranian President Massoud Peseschkian on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin was also invited to bilateral talks. On Saturday there was a conversation with China's head of state Xi Jinping, which, despite individual tensions in the past, led to the expansion of the jointIndian-Chinese cooperation.

The results of the summit itself leave a lot of room for interpretation. At the end, however, there is a joint final declaration from the participating states. However, many crucial points remain vague or are not touched upon at all, such as an analysis of the war in Iran and the conflict in Ukraine, which has been fought militarily for almost five years.

The participants agreed that the summit was marked by many global uncertainties as well as wars and crises. Since the association's 17-year existence, security policy issues have also been increasingly discussed since the BRICS summit in 2023 at the latest.

However, in contrast to the European Union, the BRICS association still does not develop a common foreign policy. The respective summits continue to be a forum for political exchange and economic cooperation. But also to send a signal that Western states are not the only reference point in the world system.

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Iran question: partners and opponents of the USA on the same side

The differences between the participating states are clearly visible, for example, in the current war in Iran. The joint final statement states, for example, that they would show “concern about the continued escalation of tensions in the Middle East/West Asia”. However, specific culprits and responsible states are not named.

This is not surprising: Iran on the one hand and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on the other, both opponents and partners of the US leadership are among the signatories of the final declaration. This largely avoids the contradictions between the participating states in the joint BRICS statement.

Clearer words can be found on the issue of Gaza - the BRICS states are calling for an end to the expulsion from the occupied Palestinian territories and are sticking to the two-state solution. The ongoing war in Ukraine, however, plays no role at all.

Contradictions also exist among the powers of the G7

With the G7's western counterparts, however, the contradictions were aired more openly. At the foreign ministers' meeting in March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the war in Ukraine as “not America's war”. In the same breath, he expressed distrust over the EU's lack of support for the Iran war waged by Israel and the USA.

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The now 19th BRICS summit will take place in China next year. This emphasizes, among other thingsIndian Prime Minister Modithat “the instrumentalization of technology and critical raw materials could hinder our common progress” and thus alludes, among other things, to the role of the Chinese state as a key supplier of raw materials. The Chinese leader Xi Jinping is also aware of this and in his final speech announced a stabilization of the existing supply chains.

The postBRICS summit comes to an end – foreign policy contradictions remain unspokenappeared firstperspective.