BEIJING, 14 Feb: Chinese leader Xi Jinping expressed support for Iran during a visit by its president on Tuesday as Tehran tries to expand relations with Beijing and Moscow to offset Western sanctions over its nuclear development.
\nThe official Chinese account of Xi\u2019s meeting with Ebrahim Raisi gave no indication whether they discussed Russia\u2019s attack on Ukraine. Tehran supplied military drones to Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s government but says they were delivered before the war began.
\nXi expressed support for Raisi\u2019s government in language Beijing uses to criticize Washington\u2019s domination of global affairs. China and Iran portray themselves, alongside Moscow, as counterweights to American power.
\n\u201cChina supports Iran in safeguarding national sovereignty\u201d and \u201cresisting unilateralism and bullying,\u201d Xi said in a statement carried by Chinese state TV on its website.
\nXi and Raisi attended the signing of 20 cooperation agreements including trade and tourism, the Chinese government announced. Those add to a 25-year strategy agreement signed in 2021 to cooperate in developing oil, industry and other fields.
\nChina is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian oil and a source of investment.
\nIran has struggled for years under trade and financial sanctions imposed by Washington and other Western governments over what they say is Tehran\u2019s efforts to develop nuclear weapons, an accusation the Iranian government denies. The U.S. government cut off Iran\u2019s access to the network that connects global banks in 2018.
\nXi said Beijing \u201copposes external forces interfering in Iran\u2019s internal affairs and undermining Iran\u2019s security and stability,\u201d according to the government statement. It said Xi promised to \u201cwork together on issues involving each other\u2019s core interests,\u201d but gave no details.
\nRaisi\u2019s government didn\u2019t immediately release details of the meeting, but the president called the two governments \u201cfriends in difficult situations\u201d in a commentary published Monday by the ruling Communist Party newspaper People\u2019s Daily.
\nA Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, asked whether Beijing was concerned that getting closer to Iran might complicate U.S.-Chinese ties, said their \u201cfriend relations\u201d contribute to \u201cpromotion of peace and stability in the Middle East.\u201d
\n\u201cOur relations do not target any third parties,\u201d said the spokesperson, Wang Wenbin. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING, 14 Feb: Chinese leader Xi Jinping expressed support for Iran during a visit by its president on Tuesday as Tehran tries to expand relations with Beijing and Moscow to offset Western sanctions over its nuclear development. The official Chinese account of Xi\u2019s meeting with Ebrahim Raisi gave no indication whether they discussed Russia\u2019s attack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-210993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}