Iran says negotiating 25-year accord with China

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Sunday that Iran has been negotiating a 25-year accord with China whose terms will be announced once a deal is struck.

“With confidence and conviction, we are negotiating a 25-year strategic accord with China,” Iran’s top trading partner, he told a stormy session of parliament.

China is also a key market for Iranian crude exports, which however have been dampened by US sanctions imposed after Washington’s 2018 withdrawal from a nuclear deal with Tehran.

An accord with China has been a hot topic on Iranian social media since populist ex-president Mahmud Ahmadinejad last month denounced negotiations underway with a foreign country.

But Zarif, who came under fire over the 2015 nuclear accord which Iranian conservatives had opposed, insisted there was “nothing secret” about the China deal.