China has urged the US to play a constructive role in West Asia as concerns of retaliation by Iran against Israel have escalated following an Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate in Damascus earlier this month.
The call for US involvement came after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with his US counterpart Antony Blinken over the phone, where Blinken asked Beijing to use its influence to dissuade Iran from striking Israel.
According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang expressed strong condemnation of the attack against the Iranian diplomatic building in Syria and emphasised the inviolable right to security of diplomatic institutions and the need to respect the sovereignty of Iran and Syria.
China also emphasised the importance of bringing an end to the war on Gaza as soon as possible and called on all parties involved to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 2728 for an immediate ceasefire.
France has warned its citizens to refrain from travel to Iran, Lebanon, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories in the coming days, while other countries such as Russia, Germany, and Britain have also made appeals to prevent a full-scale destabilization of the situation.
The US has been accused by Iran of being complicit in the genocide taking place in Gaza, while Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently renewed Iran’s vow to retaliate and accused the US of giving Israel the “green light” for the attack on the consultate. Amir-Abdollahian said: “I want to say from here in Damascus with a loud voice: America is responsible for this terrorist attack, and it must take responsibility.”
