Iran’s foreign minister urged BRICS nations on Thursday to condemn what he called violations of international law by the United States and Israel, as diplomats from emerging economies met for talks in Delhi in the shadow of war in the Middle East.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi accused US ally the United Arab Emirates of direct involvement in military operations against Iran, in a rare moment when Iranian and Emirati officials have been in the same room since the US-Israeli war against Iran began on February 28.
Araqchi said Iran was a “victim of illegal expansionism and warmongering”. He asked the BRICS+ grouping – comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the UAE – to resist “Western hegemony and the sense of impunity that the US believes it is entitled to”.
“Iran therefore calls upon BRICS member states and all responsible members of the international community to explicitly condemn violations of international law by the United States and Israel,” he said.
Later, he told the gathering that the UAE was “directly involved in the aggression against my country”, the Iranian semi-official Mehr news agency reported. The UAE was represented by its Deputy Foreign Minister Khalifa Shaheen Al Marar.
It was not immediately clear how or whether the UAE and other nations attending the BRICS+ meeting had responded to Araqchi’s remarks.
India, whose partnership with the UAE is deepening, is the BRICS chair for 2026 and is one of the parties most affected by Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the war.
The waterway usually handles about a fifth of global oil shipments, and its blockade has triggered one of the biggest supply disruptions in recent history. India, the world’s third-biggest oil importer and a big user of the strait, has suffered big supply disruptions and lost sailors in attacks on ships in the Gulf.
Although a ceasefire is in place, sporadic attacks have continued.