74 Iranian Political and Civil Activists: Iran-China Agreement ‘Is a Threat to Global Peace and Stability’

74 political and civil activists from inside and outside the country announced in an open letter to the leaders of several countries and the UN Secretary-General that the agreement between Iran and China “is a threat to global peace and stability”.

In this letter, addressed to the leaders of the United States, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, England, France, Germany and the UN Secretary-General, Iran and China are introduced as two “totalitarian” regimes and the agreement between the two countries is assessed as “a major step for China’s communist government”.

According to these activists, “Iran, as a regional pole for the new Silk Road initiative, provides China with extraordinary access to establish presence in the region”.

The letter’s authors, stating that “there is high-level military cooperation between the two regimes,” said that “China and Iran are working on a major arms deal” and “we have once again reached a point of confrontation between democratic nations and totalitarian governments that want to change the global order”.

The cabinet of the Islamic Republic of Iran government approved on the first day of Tirmah the draft “25-year comprehensive cooperation program between Iran and China” and tasked Foreign Minister Hasan Rouhani’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to bring this program to the signature of both parties by conducting final negotiations with the Chinese side.

Iran’s Foreign Minister traveled to Beijing this past summer to conduct negotiations with Chinese counterparts to finalize the agreement. The Rouhani government expressed hope that the said agreement would be signed before the end of this government’s term in the summer of next year.

Iranian political and civil activists inside and outside the country referred to this agreement in their letter as “a sinister union between communism and political Islam” which, according to them, “will bring many catastrophic consequences for the Iranian people and global society”.

According to the signatories of the letter, one of the consequences of this agreement would be “a significant increase in Chinese and Islamic Republic influence in the region” and “by doing so, the two regimes will increase support for terrorist organizations in pursuit of their geopolitical ambitions seeking to control strategically key locations”.

These activists concluded that for this reason, “this dangerous alliance will be an important strategic threat to global peace and stability”.

In this letter, stating that “the Iranian people have repeatedly shown that they are true allies of the free world,” the leaders of the United States, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, England, France, Germany and the UN Secretary-General are asked to “join an international coalition to support the wishes of the Iranian people who seek a transition away from violence and towards democracy within the framework of rule of law”.

Among the signatories of this letter, we can mention Zoroaster Ahmadi-Ragheb, Giti Poorfazel, Kourosh Zaiem, Fatemeh Sepahri, Mohammad Nourizad, Ayatollah Massoumi Tehrani and Hashamatollah Tabarzadi inside the country and Mary Apick, Shirin Ebadi, Dariush Eghbali, Parviz Seyyed, Abdolsattar Doushoki, Ali Akbar Amidmehr and Sam Rajabi outside the country.

No official information has been published about the 25-year cooperation document between Iran and China, but critics and opponents of the Islamic Republic have strongly criticized it. Some critics, including the U.S. State Department, compare this proposed agreement to the Treaty of Turkmenchay between Iran and Tsarist Russia; a treaty under which Iran handed over control of parts of its territory in the South Caucasus to Russia.

Iranian officials have dismissed these criticisms as baseless and have promised to make the agreement public after its text is finalized.

Source: Radio Farda