The U.S. government has stated that Iran’s nuclear program poses challenges to both U.S. and Chinese authorities.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price has indicated that «not long ago, the United States made an effort to engage with China on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program» because it is a challenge for both countries, he acknowledged during a press conference.
«Our bilateral relationship with China is complex,» he said, before clarifying that «there are aspects of the relationship that are adversarial, potentially conflicting,» while there are areas that «can be collaborative because of shared interests.»
In this line, Price remarked that the Iranian nuclear program is a challenge for Washington and Beijing, without specifying the reason for this.
«There are other challenges to the international system posed by Iran that also involve China, just as there are challenges to the international system in which (the Asian giant) participates that deeply concern us,» he said.
These statements come within the framework of the visit that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi begins this Tuesday to China on the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, with the aim of discussing the state of the two countries’ bilateral relations.
The two countries signed a 25-year «strategic cooperation pact» in 2021 with «political, strategic and economic» components. China is Iran’s largest trading partner, whose exports to Beijing amounted to some 12 billion euros in the last 10 months against the same approximate amount in imports of Chinese goods, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reports.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
