China has dismissed calls by United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the United Nations Security Council to extend the Iranian arms embargo, citing concerns that the regime will become an arms dealer, being the suppliers Russia and China.
Pompeo said at a press conference this week that the United States has intelligence suggesting “that China will sell weapons systems to Iran” and that “the Iranians believe that China will sell systems to Iran.”
The embargo, which prevents Iran from buying or selling weapons, is part of the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
The deal will expire on October 18.
RUSSIA CALLS ON THE NEW POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES ON “INDIPLOMATIC” NUCLEAR WEAPONS AGREEMENT, CONSIDERS THAT IT DOES NOT EXTEND
“Pompeo’s comments are totally irrational and apparently an excuse to pressure the UN Security Council to extend the arms embargo against Iran,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said at a press conference. on Friday.
“Without violating international obligations, including Security Council resolutions, China can carry out normal cooperation in the arms trade with any country, and such cooperation is beyond reproach.”
President Trump withdrew from the arms deal in 2018, calling the Obama-era deal “rotten and rotten.”
Intelligence officials and UN member states warned that the move could destabilize security in the region.
“The United States has no right to criticize China on this issue. Last year it did not sign the Arms Trade Treaty, while China recently joined it, “Hua said on Friday.
“The attitudes of the two countries towards international standards are so contrasting that they are self-explanatory.”
Pompeo also warned the UN last month that if the embargo expires, Iran will be able to buy “Russian-made fighter jets” that have the ability to attack “up to a radius of 3,000 kilometers, placing cities such as Riyadh, New Delhi, Rome and Warsaw in the Iranian sights “.
POMPEO: IF THE UN LET THE IRAN ARMS EMBARGO EXPIRE, IT WILL ‘BRING’ IDEALS OF PEACE, SECURITY
Pompeo suggested that China and Iran are already working to establish a relationship in arms sales.
“I think Europeans should look at that and realize that the risk of this is real and that work between Iran and the Chinese Communist Party may well start quickly and solidly on October 19 if we are not successful in extending the arms embargo. Pompeo said this week.
The Trump administration is also pushing for a new nuclear weapons deal with Russia that includes China, although a top Russian diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he was not optimistic that this deal would be honored.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which was signed in 2010 by former President Barack Obama and then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, was made in accordance with the original 1987 nuclear weapons agreement and worked to further eliminate the creation and stocks of nuclear weapons. arms.
RUSSIA, BLOCK OF CHINA RECENTLY THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL ATTEMPTS TO EXTEND SYRIA’S CROSS-BORDER AID PROGRAM
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew from the 1987 nuclear weapons treaty last year, leaving the START treaty as the only nuclear non-proliferation agreement between the two countries.
If the treaty expires, it would be the first time that the United States and Russia have not been united in a nuclear weapons agreement since the Cold War.
Lavrov said Russia would be willing to extend the treaty that will expire in February 2021 without contingencies, but the United States demands that China sign the new agreement as well.
China has repeatedly said that it will not sign an agreement requiring its nuclear weapons to be reduced.
“The United States has conducted more nuclear tests than others, more than a thousand at home and abroad, causing indescribable damage to the ecological environment of other countries,” Hua said on Friday. “By dragging China onto this issue, it seeks to break free from the hook and break out of the straitjacket.”
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He added that China was one of the first signatories to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, an agreement that prohibits all testing of nuclear weapons, in 1996.
“We hope that the United States stops playing dumb,” Hua said at the press conference on Friday.
“With the largest nuclear arsenal, the United States should respond to international concern, seriously fulfill its special and primary responsibilities with nuclear disarmament, respond positively to Russia’s call to extend the New START and dramatically reduce its arsenal of nuclear weapons.”
