“With confidence, we are negotiating a 25-year strategic agreement with China”, Mohammad Javad Zarif
Tehran:
Iran is negotiating a 25-year deal with China and conditions will be announced once the deal is reached, the foreign minister said on Sunday during a stormy session of parliament.
“With confidence and conviction, we are negotiating a 25-year strategic agreement with China,” said Iran’s main trading partner, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
During the session, Zarif was heckled by lawmakers, largely over his key role in negotiating a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which the United States unilaterally abandoned in 2018 as a prelude to the reimposition of biting sanctions.
It was his first address in Parliament since work began on a new home in late May following elections dominated by conservatives and ultra-conservatives.
Zarif insisted that there was “nothing secret” in the future agreement with China.
The nation will be notified “when an agreement is reached,” he said, adding that the intention had already been made public in January 2016 during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Tehran.
China is also a key market for Iranian crude exports, which have been severely limited by US sanctions.
The 2015 nuclear deal relieved the Islamic Republic of international sanctions in exchange for limiting its nuclear program, but Iranian conservatives strongly opposed the multilateral agreement, arguing that the United States could never be trusted.
But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has publicly declared himself in favor of a strategic bilateral partnership with China.
The proposed deal with China has been a hot topic on Iranian social media since populist ex-president Mahmud Ahmadinejad last month condemned ongoing negotiations with a foreign country.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
