Tehran (AFP)
Iran concluded on Saturday with China, a country "friend of times of trial", a 25-year strategic and commercial cooperation agreement with mysterious outlines after several years of discussions.
This "25-year strategic cooperation pact" was signed by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, visiting Tehran, an AFP journalist noted.
The broad outlines and details of the deal have yet to be released.
All that we know of the document signed by the two ministers is that it is, according to Tehran, a "complete roadmap", including "political, strategic and economic clauses" for " 25 years of cooperation ".
The signing of this pact illustrates the priority given to relations with "the East" (that is to say for Iran, states such as China, the two Koreas, India, Japan or Russia) in accordance with to the inflection given by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2018, breaking with one of the most popular slogans of the Iranian revolution of 1979: "Neither West nor East, Islamic Republic."
For Beijing, the agreement is part of its vast infrastructure project called the New Silk Roads launched with more than 130 countries.
China is the Islamic Republic of Iran's largest trading partner even though, according to Iranian figures, the volume of trade between the two countries fell with the reinstatement, in 2018, of US sanctions against Tehran, in the wake of the Washington's denunciation of the international Iranian nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna in 2015.
- "Appreciable actions" -
Quoted Friday by the Ilna agency, the head of the Sino-Iranian chamber of commerce in Tehran, Majid-Réza Hariri, indicated that the volume of trade between Beijing and Tehran had fallen to around "16 billion dollars" in 2020, against "51.8 billion dollars" in 2014.
China, which was one of the main buyers of Iranian oil before the sanctions, has officially sharply reduced its purchases of crude from the Islamic Republic.
According to press reports, Chinese imports of Iranian oil have never dried up, however, and have even increased recently.
According to a statement from his ministry, "Mr. Zarif called China a friend of times of trial" and told Mr. Wang, "We thank China for its appreciable positions and actions in these times of cruel sanctions against Iran. "
Receiving the Chinese Minister, President Hassan Rouhani, said he hoped Beijing "will continue to be a major trade partner with Iran" and want "more cooperation in the field of joint ventures", according to a press release from the presidency.
- "Reliable countries" -
Rohani also praised China's opposition "to American extravagance and unilateral sanctions" from Washington.
The visit to Iran of Mr. Wang, who received his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in China a few days ago, comes in a climate of heightened mistrust of the Islamic Republic vis-à-vis the West and in a period of persistent tensions between Moscow, Beijing and Tehran on one side and the United States on the other since the arrival of Joe Biden to the White House in January.
The unilateral denunciation by Washington in 2018 of the international Iranian nuclear agreement and the inability of the Europeans to help the Islamic Republic to circumvent the American sanctions reinstated that year, or to relaunch the agreement, have finally convinced Iranian authorities that the West is not a "trustworthy" partner, as Mr. Khamenei put it.
The genesis of the Iranian-Chinese pact dates back to Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Tehran in January 2016.
Tehran and Beijing then pledged in a joint statement "to conduct negotiations for the signing of an extended cooperation agreement over 25 years" and "to cooperate and have reciprocal investments in the various fields, in particular transport, ports, energy, industry and services ".
Ayatollah Khamenei then judged "everything to be correct and wise" this project, affirming that Iran was seeking "to expand its relations with independent and reliable countries such as China".
© 2021 AFP