Over 230 Iranian Activists and Civil Society Figures: Iran-China 25-Year Cooperation Agreement Lacks Credibility and is Inhumane
More than 230 political and civil activists from inside and outside Iran have signed a protest letter to China’s president, calling the 25-year cooperation agreement between Iran and China a contract that “lacks credibility” and is “inhumane.”
In the letter addressed to Xi Jinping, it is stated that the comprehensive cooperation agreement between the two countries is “reminiscent of the shameful Turkmenchai and Golestan treaties in the minds of the Iranian people, therefore we expect you to prevent the pursuit of this agreement by recalling your foreign minister to Beijing.”
The letter adds that the Islamic Republic “does not represent the Iranian people” and signed this agreement solely for the purpose of saving itself from overthrow and collapse.
Among the signatories are prominent political and civil figures such as Narges Mohammadi, Mohammad Nourizad, Kamal Jafari Yazdi, Hashem Khastar, Ghasem Shale Saadi, Hassan Shariatmadari, Javad Laaljohani, Manouchehr Bakhtiari, and Mohammad Mahdi Moazami.
The foreign ministers of Iran and China signed the comprehensive cooperation agreement between the two countries on April 27 in Tehran.
Other critics of this accord, including the U.S. State Department, also compare it to the Turkmenchai Treaty between Iran and Tsarist Russia; a treaty under which Iran lost control of large portions of its territory in the South Caucasus and ceded them to Russia.
Activists and civil society figures protesting this agreement emphasize that “the 25-year strategic agreement is in conflict with Iran’s national interests and is rejected on moral, political, legal, and humanitarian grounds.”
In another section of this protest letter, it states: “The entire Iranian nation and especially political elites,” many of whom are currently in Islamic Republic prisons “suffering severe torture” or have been isolated or forced into exile in various ways, consider this agreement to lack credibility and reserve the right to enforce the nation’s rights and claim compensation for material and moral damages.
The number of signatories to this letter has reached over 1,500 by the time of this report.
Following increased criticism over the non-publication of the Iran-China cooperation agreement text, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Asia-Pacific affairs tweeted on Sunday that “the Iran-China cooperation agreement does not have the nature of a contract or memorandum” and its publication “has no legal requirement.”
These comments come as Iranian government officials have dismissed these criticisms as baseless and had promised that after the agreement text is finalized, they would make it public.
Moreover, the publication of a roadmap document for cooperation between countries, which typically contains general outlines of the parties’ interests in expanding relations, is considered completely normal practice, and it is only the original text of a memorandum of understanding or the full provisions of an agreement that have a confidential nature, which countries and companies refrain from disclosing.
Source: Radio Farda
