China will strengthen military cooperation with Iran and Belarus and member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), including Russia, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu announced Tuesday.
“We will continue to strengthen the security cooperation mechanism within the SCO, actively deepening defense cooperation with the organization’s new member, Iran and Belarus, which will soon join the SCO,” Li said in a speech at the XII International Security Conference. in Moscow.
The Chinese minister assured that his country supports a political solution to the conflicts, including those in Ukraine.
“We will remain committed to contributing to the peace talks and building a broader international consensus to resolve conflicts, whether it be Afghanistan, Syria, the Korean Peninsula, Ukraine or the Iranian nuclear issue,” he added. up to it.quoted by the Russian agency TASS.
Established in 2001, the OCS unites China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus, with observer status, would soon join.
Li will also visit Minsk this week, where he will meet and speak with country and army leaders, and visit Belarusian military units, China’s defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian said.
Li, who was named defense minister last March, faced sanctions from the United States in 2018 on charges of buying weapons from Russia’s state-owned company Rosoboronexport.
Russia and China have agreed to strengthen military cooperation to boost mutual trust between their armed forces, the two countries said in a joint statement, following a Kremlin meeting between Russian and Chinese presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, respectively, last March.
Source: DN
