Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to China this week. This comes after China didn’t appear vocally supportive of Iran during the 12-day war with Israel. China and Iran have a 25-year economic deal, but China is reticent of conflict in the region.
Araghchi visited China to attend a ministerial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
“The Iranian foreign minister has traveled to China to participate in a meeting of the Council of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported.
Meanwhile, China Daily said, “China will continue to support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty and dignity, resisting power politics and bullying, defending its legitimate rights and interests through political negotiation, and adhering to the principle of good-neighborliness and friendship to continuously improve and develop relations with its neighboring countries, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Wednesday.”
The report noted that “Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks in North China’s Tianjin during a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, who is in China for the meeting of the council of the ministers of foreign affairs of the SCO member states.”
Iran also aims to work out its version of the CPEC
This comes amid reports that the foreign ministers of Pakistan and China on Wednesday discussed progress on the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
According to an official statement, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency said: “Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Tianjin, said the Foreign Ministry.”
Tasnim added that Araghchi said the SCO’s position was “moving beyond a regional organization and being elevated in the global arena that deals with various issues in the political, economic, and security spheres.”
“[Araghchi] said the forthcoming ministerial meeting will discuss a strategy for the promotion of SCO in the energy and trade sectors and also talk about the latest international developments. Araghchi noted that he will hold talks with his Chinese and Russian counterparts as well as the other officials of the SCO member states on the sidelines of the event,” Tasnim reported.