China hosted Iran’s Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and his Russian counterpart Andrey Belousov on Thursday for a meeting, a day after world leaders gathered for a Nato summit.
The Iranian minister’s visit to China was his first foreign trip since war broke out between his country and Israel. The meeting comes with a ceasefire between Iran and Israel appearing to hold after 12 days of fighting that stoked regional and global fears of wider escalation.
The ministers attended an annual gathering of top defence officials of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation member states in the eastern seaside city of Qingdao. The China-led security bloc also includes Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Now in its 22nd edition, the meeting was hosted by China’s Defence Minister Dong Jun.
Beijing has long sought to present the 10-member SCO as a counterweight to Western-led power blocs and has pushed to strengthen collaboration between its member countries in politics, security, trade and science.
The Iranian minister thanked China for its support during the attacks by Israel and the US. “We hope China will continue to stand for justice, help maintain the current ceasefire and play a greater role in easing regional tensions,” he said, according to China’s Xinhua news agency.
The Kremlin on Tuesday rejected criticism that it had not done enough to back Iran in its war with Israel, saying it had taken a “clear position” by condemning the US and Israeli strikes. Russian President Vladimir Putin told Iran's Foreign Minister on Monday that US attacks on Iran were “unprovoked and unjustified” during a meeting in Moscow.
China's President Xi Jinping had called for all parties, but “especially Israel”, to cease hostilities during a phone call with Mr Putin last week, Chinese state media reported. Chinese authorities were also reportedly in communication with Iran, Israel and various other parties to push for a ceasefire, ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press briefing.
The SCO meeting was also held the day after a summit of Nato leaders in The Hague, at which members agreed to ramp up their defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP to satisfy US President Donald Trump.
Discussions at the summit were largely overshadowed by the conflict in the Middle East, as Mr Trump demanded Israel and Iran respect the ceasefire he announced on June 24 and criticised both for breaching the deadline, before flying to the Netherlands.
The US leader also announced that his country and Iran were preparing for talks next week, claiming his strikes had brought Tehran to the table.
“We’re going to talk to them next week – with Iran – we may sign an agreement. I don’t know, to me, I don’t think it’s necessary,” he said. “The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done.”
