Iran envoy says has delivered protest note to China over territorial integrity

In a post on his Twitter account on Monday, Keshavarz-zadeh stated he has delivered the protest note in a meeting with senior Chinese officials, calling for the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s attention to Iran’s regional sensitivities.

“Reiterating respect for Iran’s territorial integrity, the Chinese side described the relations between the two countries as strategic, a display of which is the 25-year (cooperation) plan in the West Asia region that has been signed only with Iran,” he added.

His tweet came after Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said earlier the same day that the Chinese officials had corrected “an error” made in a joint statement by Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council during Xi’s official visit to Saudi Arabia. The statement lent support to the United Arab Emirates’ baseless claim to three Iranian Persian Gulf islands of the Letter Tunb, Greater Tunb and Abu Musa.

In a meeting with China’s Vice Premier Hu Chunhua in Tehran last week, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi noted some of the stances expressed by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his recent visit to the region have caused discontent and unease among the Iranian people and government.

Iran seriously demands that those Chinese stances be made up for, Raisi stated.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry last week once again reaffirmed that the islands of Abu Musa, the Greater Tunb and the Lesser Tunb in the Persian Gulf are inseparable parts of the country’s territory, emphasizing that the Islamic Republic will never compromise on its territorial integrity.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin later told reporters that Beijing has reaffirmed its traditional friendly relations with Iran, saying his country’s ties with Tehran and its relations with the member states of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) do not target any third party.