China has announced that its investment in Iran’s oil and gas industries during the 2005-2030 period would touch 100 billion dollars and that Chinese oil companies had made huge investments throughout the world in recent years, China Daily reported on Wednesday. “Based on a contract signed by two Chinese companies and Tehran in 2004, Iran will export more than 360 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China,” said the daily. China had also invested billions of dollars in the oil sector of South America, particularly in Venezuela, aiming to increase its oil imports from this continent. Despite its huge investments in these countries, China may have to import oil at very high prices, but it wants to guarantee its oil imports for many years, noted the paper.

Note: This item probably reflects the spate of major industrial development projects China intends to implement during the next two decades. Part ownership of oil and gas resources follows the Western opus operandi.

Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said on Wednesday that a united and independent Iraq is in the interests of all regional states: “A united, independent and democratic Iraq coexisting peacefully with its neighbors is the ideal for all people in the region,” Shamkhani told reporters at a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Saadun Al-Dulaimi. Shamkhani said Iran will spare no efforts in helping Iraq to achieve these objectives. The two countries want to leave the bitter past behind and seek to develop a principled relationship for the future, the Iranian Defense Minister added.

Al-Dulaimi is the first Iraqi Defense Minister to visit Tehran since Saddam Hussein was deposed. He traveled to Iran at Shamkhani’s invitation.

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq launched an all-out war against Iran in 1980 that lasted until 1988. As a result, Iran and Iraq have had no diplomatic relations for over two decades. “Until today, ties between us have been cut, therefore we have many issues on our agenda for the talks,” Al-Dulaimi told reporters. “Our goal is to tell our Iranian brothers that Iraq is a blessing rather than a source of evil for regional countries. Iraq wants to be independent and create peace, stability, and security in the region,” he added, stressing that Iran’s support is required to achieve these goals.

The Iranian and Iraqi Defense Ministers also stressed the need to expand the ties between the two countries. Iran was one of the first countries to recognize the Iraqi Governing Council set up after the fall of the Baathist regime. Iran was also the first Muslim state to elevate its diplomatic relations with Iraq to the ambassadorial level.

Note: The goodwill displayed by the two Defense Ministers cannot be translated into lasting cordial relations unless Iran refrains from encouraging Islamist movements in Iraq, directly or indirectly. The unity of Iraq, always fragile, is unlikely to survive foreign interventions of this kind, which cannot but breed violence. The Kurds would be the first to secede.

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