BEIJING, January 13. /TASS/. China argues against Washington’s unilateral anti-Tehran sanctions and speaks for implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, which "has not come by easily," Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang told reporters on Saturday.
"As the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] has not come by easily, all relevant parties should cherish it," he said.
"I also would like to stress that China is always opposed to the unilateral sanctions imposed by relevant countries [primarily, the United States - TASS] on other countries in accordance with their domestic laws. This position is consistent and clear-cut," the spokesperson said.
"We have also heeded that the international community universally support the JCPOA and fully recognize the efforts made by Iran to implement it," he said.
"The Chinese side always firmly supports the JCPOA. We believe that the JCPOA is an important outcome of multilateralism and a model of resolving international hot-spot issues through political and diplomatic means," Lu Kang said.
On Friday, Trump said the United States would withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal unless its "disastrous flaws" were fixed. The U.S. leader decided to waive nuclear sanctions against Iran "but only in order to secure our European allies' agreement to fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal,"
The deal on Iran’s nuclear program was reached between Iran and six international mediators (the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Russia, the United States, and France) on July 14, 2015. Under the deal, Iran undertakes to curb its nuclear activities and place them under total control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange of abandonment of the sanctions imposed previously by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and the United States over its nuclear program.
After Tehran had implemented its part of the deal, which was confirmed during IAEA’s inspection trips, on January 16, 2016 the U.S. administration under President Barack Obama lifted sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program. Nevertheless, many other restrictions, for instance over Iranian ballistic missiles, remained in place. On October 13, 2017, the U.S. current President Donald Trump refused to confirm Iran was implementing the nuclear deal.