China willing to ‘safeguard Iran’s legitimate rights’, official says 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has told his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, that Beijing is “willing to strengthen dialogue and cooperation with Iran, and safeguard Iran’s legitimate rights and interests”.

The foreign ministers met in Beijing on Wednesday, a week before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned trip to the United States, where he is set to meet his US counterpart, Donald Trump, and they are expected to discuss the war on Iran and the situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

“We encourage Iran and the US to stay rational and restrained,” Wang said.

“We urge all parties to take effective measures to reopen the Strait of Hormuz at an early date,” he said, adding that China “does not want to see regional tensions to spill over further into Yemen and the Red Sea”.

He also told Araghchi that Tehran and Washington should “rebuild the negotiation mechanism based on the consensus reached so far”.

“The current situation once again demonstrates that the existing security architecture in the Middle East is inadequate and needs to be reformed and strengthened,” Wang said.

China stands ready to promote peace, fairness and justice in the region, and its policy towards Iran has remained consistent and stable, he added.

Earlier this week, Beijing refuted US media reports that Chinese entities supplied Tehran with satellite images of a military base housing US troops in Jordan, and Trump said in April that he wrote to Xi a letter “asking him” not to sell weapons to Iran.

China is a top economic partner of Iran and the largest buyer of Iranian crude oil.