China to Back Up European Draft
France's President Jacques Chirac, who arrived on the state visit to China, negotiated with China's President Hu Jintao in Beijing yesterday. China and France will coordinate their moves in respect of Iran, the presidents announced after the talks, signaling Beijing will probably support the resolution of the U.N. Security Council as drafted by the European trio. China is apparently in no mood to unleash the diplomatic war for Iran. Instead, it attempts to establish new channels of energy supplies to replace deliveries from Middle East.
The sentiment of get-togethers of French and Chinese leaders is usually friendly. In line with tradition, the presidents were smiling broadly to reporters after the talks yesterday. And the smiles were well-justified, for France and China sealed 14 bilateral cooperation agreements ranging from nuclear technologies to communication, finance and agriculture.
One of the achievements was the contract for 150 Airbus planes to be acquired by China in France. Moreover, Hu Jintao agreed to step up the peacekeeping battalion of China in Lebanon up to 1,000 soldiers and officers.
Regardless, the top news was a joint international declaration of China and France, which covers North Korea and Iran. From now on, Beijing and Paris will coordinate their moves in the Security Council in part of the resolution on Tehran.
Beijing is in league with the European trio (U.K., Germany and France), reinforcing it against the United States, which fears the resolution would be too weak to constrain Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Indeed, the draft resolution of European negotiators couldn’t be called very tough either for Tehran or for Chinese economic interests there. At the same time, China apparently stakes on winning concessions for itself in return for support.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 27, 2006
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