Beijing, February 12 Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will visit China next week on a two-day trip at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, an official source said today.
Raisi will stay in the Asian country between February 14 and 16, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, without giving further details on the Iranian leader’s schedule.
Xi and Raisi met last September in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) during a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) during which Iran signed a memorandum for its entry into the organization, to which Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan.
At the end of this meeting, the Chinese president assured that his country wished to “strengthen cooperation” with Iran in this context and gave its support to Raisi “when it comes to safeguarding its national sovereignty and its dignity. national”.
In addition, Xi then stressed that China will continue to play “a constructive role” in reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached in 2015 on Iran’s nuclear program, and assured that it would support Iran to “safeguard their legitimate rights and interests”.
“We are ready to increase our communication and coordination with Iran to achieve further progress in our bilateral relations,” the Chinese leader said.
For his part, Raisí said his country is “firmly committed to strengthening cooperation” with China and “intensifying exchanges” between the two nations.
China and Iran concluded a 25-year economic cooperation agreement in 2021 that provides comprehensive Chinese investment in Iran’s energy and infrastructure sectors.
In return, Tehran, a major hydrocarbon producer hard hit by US sanctions, provides Beijing with a stable supply of oil and gas at competitive prices.
The Sino-Iranian partnership began to take shape with Xi’s visit to Tehran in January 2016, during which 17 cooperation agreements were signed and talks were held to raise trade to $600 billion in a decade. .
In recent years, Beijing has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States and its support for the resumption of talks to implement the Iranian nuclear agreement, abandoned by the North American country. American in 2018.