Blinken to Travel to China Next Week, Carrying Out Trip Postponed after Spy Balloon Incident

Secretary of State Antony Blinken listens as he attends a joint news conference with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, not pictured, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, June 8, 2023. (AP)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken listens as he attends a joint news conference with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, not pictured, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, June 8, 2023. (AP)
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Blinken to Travel to China Next Week, Carrying Out Trip Postponed after Spy Balloon Incident

Secretary of State Antony Blinken listens as he attends a joint news conference with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, not pictured, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, June 8, 2023. (AP)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken listens as he attends a joint news conference with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, not pictured, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Thursday, June 8, 2023. (AP)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to travel to China this month as the Biden administration pushes to improve badly deteriorated ties with the Chinese.

US officials say Blinken expects to be in Beijing on June 18 for meetings with senior Chinese officials, including with Foreign Minister Qin Gang and possibly President Xi Jinping.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because neither the State Department nor the Chinese foreign ministry have yet confirmed the trip.

The visit, which was agreed between Xi and President Joe Biden last year at a meeting in Bali, had been initially planned for February but was postponed after the spy balloon incident in which the US shot down a Chinese aircraft that Beijing insisted was a weather balloon that had strayed off course.

Since then, there have been contacts between the US and China, but they have been rare as tensions have risen over China's conduct in the South China Sea, aggressive actions toward Taiwan and support for Russia's war against Ukraine.

Last week, China's defense minister rebuffed a request from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for a meeting on the sidelines of a security symposium in Singapore.

However, China's commerce minister traveled to the US last month and Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, in Vienna in early May.

The White House said at the time that the meeting “was part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition. The two sides agreed to maintain this important strategic channel of communication to advance these objectives.”

More recently, the top US diplomat for the Asia-Pacific region, Daniel Kritenbrink, traveled to China earlier this week along with a senior National Security Council official.



Iran, European Countries Hold ‘Frank, Constructive’ Talks to Break Nuclear Stalemate

Majid Takht-Ravanchi briefs Iran’s National Security Committee on the results of the second round of dialogue with the European countries early last month. (Iranian parliament)
Majid Takht-Ravanchi briefs Iran’s National Security Committee on the results of the second round of dialogue with the European countries early last month. (Iranian parliament)
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Iran, European Countries Hold ‘Frank, Constructive’ Talks to Break Nuclear Stalemate

Majid Takht-Ravanchi briefs Iran’s National Security Committee on the results of the second round of dialogue with the European countries early last month. (Iranian parliament)
Majid Takht-Ravanchi briefs Iran’s National Security Committee on the results of the second round of dialogue with the European countries early last month. (Iranian parliament)

Talks between Iran and European powers in Geneva regarding Tehran's disputed nuclear program were serious, frank and constructive, high level Iranian diplomats said, just a week before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

European Union diplomat Enrique Mora said he held a “constructive meeting” with Iranian deputy foreign ministers Kazem Gharibabadi and Majid Takht-Ravanchi in Geneva on “exploring ways for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear issue.”

For his part, Gharibabadi posted on X that he and Takht-Ravanchi held open and constructive discussions with Mora and his team.

“We exchanged views mainly on nuclear and sanctions lifting as well as other issues of mutual interest,” he wrote.

“We also addressed Europe’s support for Israeli crimes in Gaza,” Gharibabadi said.

The Iranian delegation and the three European powers, Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, met in Geneva on Monday.

“Against a challenging context, we discussed concerns and reiterated our commitment to a diplomatic solution. We agreed to continue our dialogue,” they said in a statement posted on their X accounts.

Before the meeting with the Iranian delegation, the German foreign ministry told AFP that the talks were “not negotiations” while Iran said they were merely “consultations.”

Iran's ISNA news agency reported that the two Iranian diplomats and their counterparts from the E3 “discussed issues of mutual interest, including negotiations for lifting sanctions, the nuclear issue and the worrying situation in the region.”

It was the second round of such talks between Iran and the E3 in less than two months, following a discreet meeting in Geneva last November.

At that time, an Iranian official told Reuters that finalizing a roadmap with Europeans would “put the ball in the US court to revive or kill the nuclear deal.”

On Monday, Gharibabadi said in a post on X, “We discussed ideas involving certain details in the sanctions-lifting and nuclear fields that are needed for a deal.”

“Sides concurred that negotiations should be resumed and to reach a deal, all parties should create and maintain the appropriate atmosphere. We agreed to continue our dialogue,” he added.

Officials in Tehran fear that Trump will revive his maximum pressure strategy that sought to wreck Iran's economy to force the country to negotiate a deal on its nuclear program, ballistic missile program and regional activities.

In 2018, the US, led by then-President Trump, exited Iran's 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran.

That prompted Tehran to violate the pact's nuclear limits by rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.

Indirect talks between US President Joe Biden’s administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed.

Trump has vowed to return to the policy he pursued in his previous term.

Last December, a top Iranian diplomat warned Tehran would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty after the E3 informed the UN Security Council their readiness to use all diplomatic tools to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, including using snapback.

The snapback mechanism - part of the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - allows signatories to reimpose United Nations sanctions on Iran in cases of the “significant non-performance” of commitments.