"China is willing to work with fellow BRICS members to play due role in achieving peace and stability in the Middle East and the Gulf region," President Xi Jinping told the official Xinhua news agency in New Delhi.

"The war has caused serious losses to people across the region and does not serve the common interests of the international community," Xi added, according to Xinhua.

Xi also pointed out that power politics are on the rise, the international order is being challenged and there are growing shortcomings in terms of peace and security. The BRICS nations must stand "on the right side of history," he urged.

What does the joint declaration say?

On the first day of the BRICS Summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the adoption of a joint declaration.

The joint declaration adopted by the BRICS coalition calls for "maximum restraint" in the Middle East.

"We express deep concern over the continued escalation of tensions in Middle East/West Asia and, recalling our respective national positions, call for exercising maximum restraint, as well as avoiding actions that could further aggravate the situation," the statement read.

The member states have reiterated their commitment to peaceful resolution of international disputes through dialogue, consultation and diplomacy.

The declaration also advocates for a multilateral approach that respects diverse national viewpoints and positions on crucial global issues.

The declaration comes at a time ​when the US and Iran have resumed tit-for-tat strikes ​against each ‌other, after a pause in fighting for much of August.

Since the bloc inlcuded Iran and US-ally UAE both, it was expected that reaching a concensus will be difficult.

Additionally, the bloc expressed concerns ‌about the rise of "unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures" that distort trade, against the backdrop ​of US sanctions ⁠against Tehran amid its war with the country, and against Russia ⁠over its ​conflict with Ukraine.

The bloc stressed on the need to cooperate to maintain the smooth flow of global trade, supply chains and energy.

What does a joint declaration against war mean for the bloc's influence?

"It’s all done," Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said. And what he meant was this: BRICS has an approved joint declaration for 2026. The leaders agreed on the text of the Delhi Declaration on day one of the summit after their plenary session.

It is important to keep in mind that, for the first six months of the Iran war, the grouping of Global South nations failed to issue a joint statement. The US-Israel-led attack on Iran has put enormous strain on the bloc.

The war directly involves three BRICS members: Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. But not as allies. Iran has attacked the UAE and Saudi Arabia, seeing them as proxies for the US.

The war has been devastating for the Global South, which BRICS represents. Think oil and fertilizers — and food security.

The compromise now found in Delhi appears to be a joint declaration condemning unilateral wars, without naming any country. 

That is rather low-key — but perhaps better than nothing, especially for BRICS chair India, which can claim this as a diplomatic victory. As former UN diplomat and prominent Indian foreign policy voice Shashi Tharoor had told me before the summit:

"There is very little doubt that all the BRICS members have not necessarily upheld the UN Charter, the inviolability of borders, the sovereignty of member states of the UN, and the inadmissibility of the use of force to settle international disputes."

The BRICS countries now number 11 and represent about half of the world’s population. And when economies are measured by what people can actually buy, they account for around 40 percent of global economic output.

So BRICS leaders feel they have a strong case for criticizing western political hegemony and the dominance of the US dollar. They argue that global institutions such as the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank no longer reflect the rising power of emerging economies and the Global South.

In his opening address, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that reform of the UN Security Council cannot wait any longer.

Xi says US-Iran war doesn't serve "common interests": Xinhua

Speaking during the BRICS Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the Middle East war, sparked by US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, does not serve the world's interests, Beijing's state media reported.

"As the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region continues to evolve, the war there has caused serious losses to people across the region," state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying in New Delhi, which is hosting the 18th BRICS summit attended by leaders including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

It "does not serve the common interests of the international community", Xi said, according to Xinhua.

India's difficult BRICS chairship

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BRICS reaches consensus, Modi announces joint declaration

In his closing remarks for the first session at the BRICS Summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the BRICS ‌group ⁠of nations ⁠unanimously ​adopted a ​joint declaration ​on ‌Saturday, the first day ‌of their ‌annual ​summit in New Delhi.

Reuters news agency, citing four anonymous sources, had earlier in the day reported that members of the BRICS coalition have agreed on a joint declaration which does not name any country but will condemn unilateral ​war by any country.

The members include Brazil, ​Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, ​Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Can BRICS Really Challenge the Dollar? Not Quite, Says BRICS Expert

As leaders gather in New Delhi for the 2026 BRICS Summit, talk of "de-dollarization" is everywhere. But Anuradha Mitra Chenoy, Professor and former dean at School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, argues the real story is more modest, and more interesting.

Every BRICS summit now comes with the same headline: is this the moment the bloc finally dethrones the US dollar? For Chenoy, the question itself is the problem.

"The debate is often overstated," she told DW. BRICS countries, in her reading, are not on a mission to replace the dollar. What they are doing is settling more of their bilateral trade in local currencies — a shift that has less to do with ideology than with practicality. It cuts transaction costs, speeds up payments, and makes trade more predictable for businesses that used to route everything through dollars by default.

A dollar that’s been "weaponized"

If there’s a political edge to this trend, Chenoy locates it elsewhere, in how the dollar itself has been used as a tool of coercion. US sanctions, tariffs, and the freezing or outright confiscation of foreign reserves have all pushed countries, particularly across the Global South, to think harder about their exposure to the American financial system.

That calculus matters most for heavily indebted developing economies. By trading directly in local currencies with partners like India, China, Russia, and South Africa, these countries can sidestep some of their need to hold dollars just to settle trade. The payoff, Chenoy says, is twofold. Firstly, lower transaction costs, and secondly, in some cases, less reliance on dollar-denominated debt.

New Delhi has backed greater use of local currencies and cross-border payment mechanisms within BRICS, even as it keeps its economic relationship with Washington firmly intact.

What is BRICS Pay?

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For Chenoy, It’s also not a new one. She points back to the Rupee-Ruble trading arrangement India ran with the Soviet Union decades ago — a reminder that local-currency trade has deep roots in Indian economic policy, long before "de-dollarization" became a buzzword.

Chenoy says what’s actually happening inside BRICS — not a coordinated campaign to topple the dollar, but a pragmatic hedge that countries are spreading their financial risk across more currencies and more systems, one bilateral deal at a time.

Modi meets Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince on sidelines of BRICS Summit

Modi met with Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed at the BRICS Summit in New Delhi.