in our top story china has pledged to

safeguard the iran nuclear deal and

defend the legitimate interests of its

relations with tehran

commerce ministry spokesman made the

remarks during a briefing

gao fang said that his country has now

received notices of sanctions on iranian

oil

from the new u.s administration now this

says the biden administration has said

it will hold off

on lifting sanctions unless tehran comes

comes back into full compliance

with the 2015 nuclear deal tehran has

rejected

washington's demands saying it was the

u.s which abandoned the u.n indoors to

court

and therefore should be the one to take

the first step former u.s president

donald trump withdrew from the deal

back in may 2018 and pledged to bring

iran's oil exports down to zero

through his so-called maximum pressure

campaign but he never achieved the goal

joining us out of lima peru is peter

koenig geopolitical analyst

hello peter hope you're safe and doing

well your thoughts how the chinese fit

into this whole spat between washington

and iran when it comes to the jcpoa

thank you very much for having me yes i

think it's

absolutely correct what tehran

decides to do i would like to

congratulate

the iranian government for this step

which is super necessary against

president biden and i also would like to

congratulate china that they maintain

their relationship with iran

i think this is a good move for iran to

actually see the east rather than the

west as their future

and i believe there is absolutely no

reason for

tehran to make concessions if anybody

has to make the first step

as they say hey it is the united states

and uh and not iran i would absolutely

agree with that

statement and i'm very happy that i see

that

this uh this development which i had

actually

in order to uh already

many times thought that this this was

the right way to go

and and when you say that you welcomed

you know iran's shifting more so to the

east and the west when it comes to trade

what is it about that narrative that you

find more appealing the east compared to

the west

sorry can you repeat the question i

didn't quite get it yeah

you mentioned uh that you appreciate the

fact that and you

you indulge in the fact that iran is

turning more so to the east and the west

why so

oh yes well i think it's very clear

it's very clear that the future is in

the east the future is

uh with china and china's association

countries with the shanghai corporation

organization uh with the with the bloc

china russia that is the future i think

the west has

committed suicide by its greed by its

sanctions by its lies and by its

slandering of

other countries and especially by these

absolutely illegal sanctions that it

dishes out

i think this is this is the demise of

the west

and therefore it is uh very

clever and natural to move eastwards

and do you see beijing playing a part in

uh

perhaps behind the scenes and getting

the jcpoa between uh

the world powers and particularly

between washington and tehran

revived again because we know that

beijing has its own spats and issues

and routes with washington over a host

of issues

well i don't know about that but i think

this uh this nuclear agreement

could very well be in an agreement which

which excludes washington

why does washington have to be part of

it because washington broke it

why can't it be an agreement between

russia china

and iran and possibly the

europeans although i believe the

europeans are not ready for something

like that they are still

too much under the boot of washington

so why why not having an agreement

between

between the the three the three

countries which would be

a new alliance and i think a very

healthy alliance and it goes in this

direction and

as i said before for me it's a very very

positive move

good stuff always a pleasure to have you

on and joining us from lima peru peter

koenig geopolitical analyst

stay safe peter