Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that the current truce between the US and Iran is “very fragile” and urged the international community to “unequivocally oppose any actions that undermine the ceasefire or escalate the confrontation,” Reuters and CNN write.
China's top diplomat made the remarks during a telephone conversation with his Pakistani counterpart, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, the Wang-led ministry said. “The urgent task is to prevent the resumption of hostilities and maintain the momentum of the hard-won truce,” Wang said.
China would be happy to see Pakistan play a bigger role in resolving the conflict, Wang said in the phone call, adding that Beijing is also ready to make its contribution.
Wang also urged the international community to promote negotiations to maintain the “extremely fragile” truce between the US and Iran.
Separately, Wang met with Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, the special envoy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to China. During the meeting, the head of Chinese diplomacy emphasized that the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – imposed by the US earlier on Monday, which also targets other Iranian ports in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman – “does not serve the common interests of the international community”, according to a statement about the meeting, posted on the X social network by Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing.
“Achieving a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire through political and diplomatic means is the fundamental path to follow,” the statement added.
Throughout the US-Israel-Iran war, China has sought to position itself as an ostensibly neutral side while maintaining its relationship with Tehran, on whose crude it depends heavily.
US intelligence indicates that Beijing is preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran in the next few weeks, three sources previously told CNN. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said Beijing “has never supplied weapons to any party involved in the conflict”.
China is a major partner of Iran, accounting for more than 80 percent of its oil exports before the war, according to analyst firm Kpler. The same source indicates that over half of China's seaborne crude oil imports come from the Middle East and mostly pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
