China says business ties with Iran no harm to any other country

Reuters  |  BEIJING 

(Reuters) - China's business and ties with do not harm the interests of any other country, the country's said, after U.S. said companies doing business with would be barred from the

In a statement released late on Friday, China's reiterated its opposition to unilateral sanctions and "long-armed jurisdiction".

"For a long time, and Iran have had open, transparent and normal commercial cooperation in the fields of business, trade and energy, which is reasonable, fair and lawful," it said.

"This does not violate Security Council resolutions or China's promised international obligations, nor does it harm the interests of any other country, and should be respected and protected," the ministry added.

Using sanctions at the slightest pretext or to threaten anyone won't resolve the problem, it said.

"Only dialogue and negotiations are the true path to resolving the issue," the ministry added.

China, Iran's top customer, buys roughly 650,000 barrels a day of from Tehran, or 7 percent of China's total imports. At current market rates, the imports are worth some $15 billion a year.

firms and have invested billions of dollars in key Iranian such as Yadavaran and North Azadegan and have been sending oil to

European countries, hoping to persuade to continue to respect the nuclear deal, have promised to try to lessen the blow of sanctions and to urge their firms not to pull out.

But that has proven difficult, and European companies have quit Iran, arguing that they cannot risk their U.S. business.

Few American companies do much business in Iran so the impact of sanctions mainly stems from Washington's ability to block European and Asian firms from trading there.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Sat, August 11 2018. 04:56 IST