On the occasion of the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who arrived in Tehran on Friday evening, Iran and China signed a twenty-five-year strategic and commercial cooperation agreement on Saturday March 27. This “Complete roadmap”, under discussion for several years, and comprising “Political, strategic and economic clauses” for “Twenty-five years of Iran-China cooperation (…) will be signed “ Saturday, Iranian foreign spokesman Said Khatibzadeh said.
China is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s largest trading partner and was a major buyer of Iranian crude before the reinstatement of US sanctions on Iran’s energy sector in 2018, which brought down oil exports from Tehran . “We believe that this document can be very effective for deepening” Sino-Iranian relations, Khatibzadeh said on state television, recalling that the genesis of this project dates back to the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Tehran in January 2016, during which he notably met Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Reciprocal investments”
Tehran and Beijing were then “Committed to conducting negotiations for the signing of an enlarged cooperation agreement over twenty-five years” and “To cooperate and have reciprocal investments in various fields, in particular transport, ports, energy, industry and services”, according to a joint statement published on the occasion of this visit. “The Iranian government and people are seeking, as they always have done, to expand their relations with independent and reliable countries such as China”, had declared on occasion Mr. Khamenei, judging “Quite correct and wise” the Sino-Iranian project, also presented as a “Global strategic partnership”.
The agreement is expected to be signed at midday at the Iranian foreign ministry between Mr. Wang and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif. To date, the broad outlines of the agreement, which would involve Iran in the “New Silk Road” project dear to President Xi Jinping, have not been disclosed.
A permanent member of the UN Security Council, China is one of Tehran’s partners in the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. Since the United States withdrew from this pact in 2018 and that they have reinstated in the wake of punitive sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Beijing has instead shown its support for Tehran in the face of this unilateral approach by former US President Donald Trump.
