China condemns killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei, calls for truce

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BEIJING – China said it “strongly condemns” the

killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

, as it again called for a halt to a spiraling conflict between Iran and the United States and its ally, Israel.

The killing is “a serious violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security, a trampling on the aims and principles of the UN Charter and the basic norms of international relations”, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this,” it added, as it called for the “immediate halting of military operations” so that talks towards a more permanent solution could begin.

The Xinhua news agency reported that China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spoken to his Russian counterpart, Mr Sergei Lavrov.

In that conversation, Mr Wang said the

strikes carried out by US and Israeli forces

, as well as US President Donald Trump’s call for regime change in Iran, are “unacceptable”.

China’s embassy in Israel issued a notice on March 1 advising Chinese citizens in Israel to evacuate to safer areas within the country as soon as possible or to leave for Egypt via the Taba border crossing.

China’s Foreign Ministry also urged Chinese citizens in Iran to leave “as soon as possible”, listing four land routes to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Iraq.

In a commentary on March 1, China's state-run Xinhua news agency criticised the attack, calling it “brazen aggression against a sovereign nation” and “power politics and hegemony”.

Xinhua said Washington's use of military coercion was a “flagrant violation” of the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and a departure from “fundamental norms of international relations”. AFP, REUTERS