China says it supports Iran in safeguarding national sovereignty

BEIJING: China supports Iran’s commitment to safeguarding national sovereignty and security, and hopes a “real ceasefire” can be achieved on that basis, China’s foreign minister told his Iranian counterpart on Tuesday, a Chinese ministry statement showed.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the remarks in a phone call with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, according to the statement.

Separately, Wang told his Turkish counterpart in a telephonic conversation said China has been in contact with Iran, Israel and relevant parties and looks forward to the realisation of a “real ceasefire”.

All parties should resume dialogue on an equal basis and return to the path of a political settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue, Wang said, according to a statement from his ministry.

The Palestinian issue is still at the heart of Middle East issues, he added.

NO REGIME CHANGE AND IRANIAN OIL

The Chinese comments came on a day which saw US President Donald Trump saying that China can continue buying Iranian oil.

Iran, with the third largest oil reserves in the world, relies heavily on oil exports amid the US sanctions and China is its biggest client. Estimates show Beijing buys more than 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports.

However, the biggest statement from Trump was that he does not want to see “regime change” in Iran, which he said would lead to chaos.

He said Iran is not going to have a nuclear weapon and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had called him and offered to help with Iran.

“If there was, there was, but no I don’t want it. I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible,” Trump said. “Regime change takes chaos, and ideally we don’t want to see so much chaos.”