In an interview with China’s Phoenix TV before the presidents of Iran and China had a 60-minute phone conversation this week, Mehdi Safari said that Iran's foreign policy is based on making a balance in foreign relations.
Safari firmly dismissed the speculation that a rapprochement between Iran and the West through reviving the 2015 nuclear deal could impact Tehran-Beijing relations.
He said that President Ebrahim Raisi has emphasized time and again that Iran wouldn’t forget its friends, including China, even if Iran’s relations with the West become normal after a possible revival of the deal which is formally referred to as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or simply the JCPOA.
The foreign ministry official said that Iran was open to expansion of economic ties and has offered creating a common currency to enable Iran, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and the CIS to form a union for economic cooperation.
If the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members have a common currency, this could be extended to the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) and even to the BRICS grouping, according to Safari.
He called for seizing the opportunities for expanding relations between Iran and China, as the two countries have a good precedent that should be revived.
The official also highlighted an agreement between Iran and Russia to use national currencies in their trade, saying that the measure resembled that of Russia and China in de-dollarization of their trades.
Safari said that Iran offered the same agreement to China for so long, but Beijing didn’t send a positive signal.
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