China has broken silence on the developing situation in Iran. This comes against the backdrop of a discernible shift in the Barack Obama administration’s posturing toward political developments in Iran. The government-owned China Daily featured its main editorial comment on Thursday titled “For Peace in Iran.” It comes amidst reports in the western media that the former President, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is rallying the Qom clergy to put pressure on the Guardian Council — and, in turn, on Spiritual Leader Ali Khamenei — to annul last Friday’s electoral verdict.
Beijing fears a confrontation looming ahead and counsels Mr. Obama to keep the pledge in his Cairo speech not to repeat such appalling errors in the U.S.’s Middle East policy as the overthrow of the elected government of Mohammed Mosaddeq in Iran in 1953. Beijing also warns about letting the genie of popular unrest get out of the bottle in a highly volatile region that is waiting to explode. Meanwhile, China’s special envoy on Middle East Wu Sike set out on an extensive fortnight-long regional tour on Saturday (which, significantly, will be rounded off with consultations in Moscow) to fathom the political temperature in capitals as varied as Cairo and Tel Aviv, Amman and Damascus, and Beirut and Ramallah.
Beijing also made a political statement when a substantive bilateral was scheduled between President Hu Jintao and the Iranian president-elect Mahmoud Ahmedinejad on Tuesday on the sidelines of the summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation [SCO] in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Conceivably, Mr. Hu would have discussed the Iran situation with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev during his official visit to Moscow that followed the SCO summit meeting. Earlier, Moscow greeted Mr. Ahmedinejad’s re-election. Both China and Russia abhor “colour” revolutions, especially something as intriguing as the Twitter, which Moscow came across a few months ago in Moldova and raises hackles about the U.S.’s interventionist global strategy.
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