China, Russia and Iran call for end to US sanctions on Iran, urge holding talks

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Representatives of China, Russia and Iran called Friday for an end to US sanctions on Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program and for a restart of multinational talks on the issue.

The talks are the latest attempt to broach the matter and come after US President Donald Trump wrote to Iran’s supreme leader in an attempt to jumpstart talks.

The letter, which hasn’t been published, was offered as Trump levied new sanctions on Iran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign that holds out the possibility of military action while emphasizing he still believed a new deal could be reached.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday rejected the US offer for negotiations on the nuclear issue.

The three nations whose officials met Friday morning “emphasized the necessity of terminating all unlawful unilateral sanctions,” China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu read from a joint statement, flanked by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov Sergey Alexeevich and Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was due to meet with the representatives later in the day.

US President Donald Trump (left) speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on March 6, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP); Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei attends a meeting with a group of defense officials, in Tehran, February 12, 2025. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Khamenei has mocked Trump, saying he isn’t interested in talks with a “bullying government,” although Iranian officials have offered conflicting signals over the possibility of negotiations. Trump sent a letter to Khamenei in 2019 with no apparent effect on rising tensions.

China and Russia have particularly close relations with Iran through energy deals, and Iran has provided Russia with bomb-carrying drones in its war against Ukraine.

They are also seen as sharing a joint interest in diminishing the role of the US and other liberal democracies in determining world events in favor of their own highly authoritarian systems.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon and regularly threaten to flatten Israeli cities. Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60 percent, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so. The UN nuclear agency and Western analysts say only countries seeking an atomic bomb enrich uranium to that level.

This photo released November 5, 2019, by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran shows centrifuge machines in Natanz uranium enrichment facility near Natanz, Iran. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, File)

Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium only up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms (661 pounds). The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s program put its stockpile at 8,294.4 kilograms (18,286 pounds) as it enriches a fraction of it to 60% purity.

While Iran has maintained it won’t negotiate under duress, its economy has been savaged by the US sanctions. Protests over women’s rights, the economy and Iran’s theocracy in recent years have shaken its government.

China has sought to become more involved in Middle Eastern affairs, and a year ago hosted talks leading to the full restoration of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran.