China yesterday urged Iran to heed rising international concern about its nuclear ambitions, saying Beijing would seek to work with Europe and the UN to defuse the crisis.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that his country's nuclear program was irreversible, showing continued defiance in the face of possible new UN sanctions.
He claimed that Iran now had 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium in its Natanz nuclear plant. Enriched uranium can fuel power plants but also, if refined further, act as material for bombs.
The number is a milestone because scientists say that in ideal conditions it is sufficient to produce enough enriched uranium in one year to make a single nuclear bomb.
Ahmadinejad has made the centrifuge claim previously, but his latest statement has been seen by some parties, particularly the US, as especially provocative as tensions have spiked recently over the issue.
Iran says its intentions are peaceful, but Western powers say the Islamic state wants the ability to make nuclear weapons and they have warned Tehran to obey a UN call to halt enrichment.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has the power to pass or veto any fresh sanctions on Tehran, but -- without outright excluding them -- Beijing has repeatedly said that negotiations can still solve the standoff.
Repeating that call for dialogue, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (
"We demand that Iran positively respond and pay attention to international concerns and calls and adopt a flexible attitude to solve the problem peacefully through dialogue and communication," Liu told a regular news conference when asked about Ahmadinejad's comments and possible sanctions.
Liu did not directly address the sanctions issue, merely saying that China was "willing to cooperate and communicate with the United Nations and the European Union to move in the right direction."
On Wednesday Ahmadinejad declared that Iran "couldn't care less" about UN sanction threats.
"We have taken note of the developments and we request Iran to positively respond and attach importance to the concerns of the international community," Liu said.
The US is pressing for tough new UN sanctions and has not ruled out a military strike on Iran, while Ahmadinejad recently said any such strike would face a strong response and threatened Iran could cut off Persian Gulf oil shipments.
Although it opposes a nuclear-armed Iran, energy-hungry China has consistently opposed tough action against the Mideast state.
Iran's standoff with the West has left China in a bind as Beijing seeks to balance ties with both sides.
Iran is China's third biggest supplier of imported crude oil, behind Angola and Saudi Arabia, and China also has major investments in Iran.
Also seeIsraeli official calls for ElBaradei to be fired from UN post
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS