A month after the signing of a twenty-five-year “strategic cooperation agreement” between Iran and China, almost no details of its content have been released. If some, in the United States as in Iran, have pointed out, alarmed, a “Major geopolitical change”, sign of Iran’s pivot to the east and a bringing the two countries closer to the United States, this non-binding and still symbolic partnership at this stage hardly constitutes a major development in Tehran’s strategy. In the eyes of analysts, this partnership offers above all “A rhetorical victory” and ” Politics “ to Iran at a pivotal moment, as negotiations are underway in Vienna to save the Iran nuclear deal.
“So Iran can say to the West: ‘Look ! You will never be able to isolate us as you have done in the past ” “, analysis Dina Esfandiary, Middle East specialist in the International Crisis Group think tank. But the signing of this bilateral framework agreement does not remove Tehran or Beijing from the imperative of reaching a compromise with Washington on Iranian nuclear power. Its genesis is also linked to the nuclear “deal” signed in 2015 by Tehran with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany. The denunciation of this “deal” by Washington in 2018 and the reinstatement of American sanctions had brought an end to the talks started in 2016 by Beijing and Tehran on this partnership. The signing of the China-Iran agreement during the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Tehran on March 27 took place at the same time as the relaunch of nuclear negotiations.
The success of these negotiations also depends on the implementation of the partnership between Iran and China. The extent and timing of contracts that can then be signed between the two countries also depend on the progress and, ultimately, the outcome of the Vienna talks. Already in 2019, due to US sanctions, Beijing was forced to withdraw from the South Pars development project, a huge gas field in the Persian Gulf. “This framework agreement with China is for the moment mainly symbolic, supports Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, Iranian economist and founder of the Europe-Iran Business Forum. If US sanctions were lifted [à la suite d’un accord à Vienne], we would move from the symbolic to the real implementation of contracts and links. In that case, Iran could finally reap significant economic benefits from its deal with China. “
You have 53.82% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.