BRICS Sherpas bridge Iran-UAE differences, fine-tune Delhi Declaration ahead of summit

BRICS Sherpas met here ahead of the group’s summit this weekend to finetune the Delhi Declaration and resolve differences on how the joint statement should refer to the West Asia war.

The special representatives of the 11 BRICS members met here on Sunday and Monday to find ways to bridge differences that had cropped up between Iran and the UAE during earlier meetings and agree on a common language on the West Asia war and the situation in Palestine, people aware of the deliberations told ET.

It may be recalled that BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting and trade ministers’ meeting earlier could not issue a joint statement due to differences between the UAE and Iran. Efforts have been intensified to ensure unity among members at the Delhi summit.


The Delhi Declaration will have references to the West Asia war and Palestine, people cited above said. India has also pushed for including strong anti-terror measures and reforms of multilateral institutions, including the United Nations, in the BRICS Declaration.

The group is also working on the formulation in the declaration on unilateral sanctions imposed by countries.

Trade in national currencies among BRICS members and future projects of BRICS’ New Development Bank will also be discussed at the 18th summit, coinciding with the 20th year of the formation of the grouping. The summit will adopt a people-centric approach with focus on energy, resilient supply chains, startups, innovation funds and internationalisation of MSMEs.

Amid pressure on global supply chains due to conflicts, the summit is expected to adopt a BRICS Logistics Supply-Chain Cooperation Framework to strengthen the resilience, efficiency and sustainability of cross-sector transport logistics and supply chains among members.