Iran, China Boost Cooperation, Sign 17 Agreements

They did not give details of their goal of developing relations worth $600 billion over the next decade.

Xi is the first Chinese president to visit Iran in 14 years, on a Middle East tour that also took him to Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The Iranian president said that he and President Xi also discussed the monetary, banking and investment issues as well as long-term contracts on energy, railways, ports and technology parks construction and expansion of cooperation in industrial, mining and tourism sectors.

“Energy is a crucial issue of the contemporary world; Iran is the only country in the region to be relied upon in terms of energy security, since no non-national influence would affect the country’s policies in energy, unlike other countries in the region”, Ayatollah Khamenei asserted. China is to undertake the project as part of Xi’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, meant to create a trade corridor between China and Europe.

There was also an agreement between the nuclear chiefs of the two countries for cooperation on peaceful energy, according to Press TV. “We would just hope that, just as China has played a very constructive role throughout this process, that China will continue to play that role in all of its engagement with the Iranian Government”, says Ambassador Stephan Mull, Lead Coordinator for Iran Nuclear Implementation at the State Department.

“Iran had a relationship both politically and economically with China and Russian Federation for the last ten years in ways that it hasn’t had with Europe”.

During Xi’s visit, the two countries are expected to lift their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Rouhani echoed Xi’s words saying that Iran will actively respond to the Belt and Road Initiative and carry out closer communication and coordination with China on global affairs.

He pointed to an orientation to the east naturally embedded in Iranian culture and mindset; “western countries had systematically failed to win trust of the Iranians”, the Leader said.

Countries on the Silk Road route can “protect their interests against the American pattern of disrupting the regional economic balance by boosting cooperation”, Xi added.

However, the Guardian Council, the Iranian parliament body which technically ruled out an entire party from the elections, mentions that they are anticipating the most historically competitive elections that have ever taken place in Iran.

Saudi Arabia and a number of Sunni Arab allies broke diplomatic ties with Iran this month after protesters angry over the Saudi execution of Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia, ransacked Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.