Iranian President Hassan Rouhani yesterday hailed a “new chapter” in relations with China after talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who is touring the region to boost Beijing’s economic influence.
The Asian giant and the Middle East’s foremost Shiite power aim to build economic ties worth up to US$600 billion within the next 10 years, Rouhani said.
The two leaders oversaw the signing of 17 agreements in areas including politics, the economy, security and cooperation on peaceful nuclear energy.
Photo: AP
“With the Chinese president’s visit to Tehran and our agreements, a new chapter has begun in Tehran-Beijing relations,” Rouhani said in a televised speech, flanked by Xi.
It is the first visit to Iran by a Chinese president in 14 years, according to state news agency IRNA.
“Iran is China’s major partner in the Middle East and the two countries have chosen to boost bilateral relations,” IRNA quoted Xi as saying.
Beijing is Tehran’s top customer for oil exports, which in recent years were hit by US and EU sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trade between the two countries was worth US$52 billion in 2014.
According to Iranian media, more than one-third of Iran’s foreign trade is carried out with China.
Xi, accompanied by three deputy prime ministers and six ministers, also brought with him a large business delegation.
He was later yesterday scheduled to meet with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Xi’s tour, his first of the Middle East as Chinese president, also took him to Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Riyadh and a number of Sunni Arab allies broke diplomatic ties with Iran this month after protesters angry over the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric ransacked Saudi Arabian diplomatic missions in Iran.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion