China urged calm and restraint by all sides on Monday, following US President Donald Trump\u2019s threat to \u200bblockade the Strait of Hormuz after the failure of weekend \u200ctalks in Islamabad aimed at ending the Iran war. Before the war, most Iranian oil exports were shipped to China, the top global importer of crude. Keeping the key \u200bStrait of Hormuz waterway safe, stable and unimpeded served the interest \u200bof the international community, foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told \u2060a regular press conference, when asked about the blockade threat. \u201cChina hopes \u200bthe relevant parties will abide by the temporary ceasefire arrangements, remain committed \u200bto resolving disputes through political and diplomatic means, and avoid a resumption of hostilities,\u201d he said. China stood ready to \u201cplay a positive and constructive role\u201d in resolving the \u200bcrisis, Guo added, calling the opening talks in the Pakistani capital a \u200bstep in a direction conducive to easing tension. After the marathon talks failed, the US Central \u200cCommand \u2060said its forces would begin a blockade of all maritime traffic with Iranian ports from 10 am ET (1400 GMT) on Monday. China and Pakistan had backed peace talks in March while urging an immediate ceasefire in the \u200bIran war and restoration \u200bof normal \u2060navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for about a fifth of global oil and gas supplies. Guo \u200brejected reports that China had plans to supply weapons to \u200bIran as \u201cgroundless \u2060smears and malicious associations\u201d. Last week, Trump threatened immediate tariffs of 50%, with no exemptions, on imports from countries supplying Iran with military weapons. \u201cChina has consistently \u2060taken a \u200bprudent and responsible approach to arms exports,\u201d \u200bGuo said, adding that its strict controls were in line with domestic laws and international \u200bobligations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China urged calm and restraint by all sides on Monday, following US President Donald Trump\u2019s threat to \u200bblockade the Strait of Hormuz after the failure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31824,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}