The Diplomacy Of Omission: Why India Avoids Choosing Between Iran And UAE

Last Updated:May 15, 2026, 14:28 IST

At the BRICS meet in New Delhi, Iran accused the UAE of military aggression, even as India signed a strategic defence pact and major investment deals with the UAE in Abu Dhabi

New Delhi played host this week to a rather remarkable scene in recent Indian diplomatic history. On May 14, as part of the two-day BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at Bharat Mandapam, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sat across the table from the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs – Khalifa Shaheen Al Marar in the same room. Both were among the senior delegates attending the meeting, hosted by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar under India’s 2026 chairship of the expanded BRICS grouping. Within hours, Araghchi had accused the UAE of being an active military belligerent against Iran.

The following morning, i.e. today, however saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Abu Dhabi signing a strategic defence pact with the UAE.

That, in all its glorified zeal and bravado, is Indian foreign policy. Deliberate, specific, and completely unembellished about the fact that it will deal with everyone.

At the BRICS meeting, Araghchi did not hold back. His address to assembled foreign ministers invoked the spectre of American “coercion" shared by many in the room. “To virtually everyone in this room, our resistance against US bullying is not an unfamiliar battle. So many of us encounter slight variations of the same repugnant coercion," he said, calling on the bloc to collectively reject what he described as practices that “belong in the dustbin of history." He closed with an image that would not be out of place in poetry: “A wounded animal will desperately claw and roar on its way down."

Then, in remarks that cut through the diplomatic niceties of a multilateral summit, Araghchi accused the UAE of being directly involved in military actions against Iran during the ongoing West Asian conflict. At the April BRICS Deputy Foreign Ministers’ meeting, also held in New Delhi, Iran and the UAE had already clashed over how to frame the war in any joint statement. That gathering ended without consensus.

This time, Araghchi was more explicit, saying, “The UAE is an active partner in this aggression, and there is no doubt about it," adding that UAE forces may have acted directly against Iranian interests.

Also on May 14, Araghchi met PM Modi on the sidelines of the summit, whilst also holding a separate meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

None of this has caused a choke in India’s diplomatic calendar from running on schedule.

The Prime Minister’s visit produced an Agreement on Framework for the Strategic Defence Partnership between India and UAE, along with a Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Petroleum Reserves, an agreement on supplies of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, and an MoU on setting up a Ship Repair Cluster at Vadinar. Investments worth USD 5 billion were announced in Indian infrastructure, RBL Bank, and Samman Capital, reported ANI. Modi held delegation-level talks with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

This is what de-hyphenation looks like, in practice and in real time.

Rtn. Anil Trigunayat, former Indian ambassador to Jordan, Libya, and Malta, and one of India’s most experienced voices on West Asian diplomacy, neatly laid down the philosophy behind this movement of thought, with the digital desk of News18. “We have very assiduously developed a policy of four D’s: dialogue, diplomacy, de-escalation, and de-hyphenation. That means, my relationship with Israel has no impact on my relationship with Iran or Saudi Arabia or UAE or any countries. So, we have our relationship with all these countries because they are very, very important to us."

The logic behind that statement is not a personification of modern abstract art. The UAE is India’s third-largest trade partner and among its biggest sources of foreign direct investment, with bilateral trade sharply accelerated since the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2022. Iran, for its part, is India’s gateway to Central Asia through the Chabahar port and a partner in energy. The United States is India’s global comprehensive strategic partner. So is Israel.

The war in West Asia is, as Trigunayat noted, a war among India’s own strategic partners. That is not a situation that any doctrine, or statement can fully resolve. But what India has chosen, rather consistently, is to refuse to resolve it by picking a side.

Some may read this as opportunism. Others as principled neutrality. The Indian government’s answer is that the distinction barely matters. The relationships exist, they are needed, and they will be maintained.

The four D’s are, in the end, less a doctrine and more of a description of how India actually behaves when the world forces a choice. It finds a fifth option, off the table, outside the box.

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