China strongly deplores and firmly rejects the UK’s unilateral sanctions that lack any basis in international law and are not authorized by the UN Security Council, a spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Monday in response to the UK Foreign Office’s February 24 announcement of a new round of Russia-related sanctions, involving multiple Chinese companies.
The UK has repeatedly placed Chinese companies on its sanctions list over Russia-related issues, and China firmly opposes these unilateral measures, according to a post on the MOFCOM website.
On the issue of the Ukraine crisis, China has been strictly controlling the export of dual-use items in accordance with relevant laws and regulations. Normal exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and Russian companies should not be interfered with or disrupted, the spokesperson said.
China urges the UK to immediately correct its wrongdoings and revoke the sanctions on relevant Chinese entities to safeguard the positive momentum in China-UK relations, said the MOFCOM spokesperson.
China will take necessary measures to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies, the spokesperson stressed.
The United States will continue “large-scale operations” to eliminate what Donald Trump described as the “grave threat posed by a terrible terrorist regime”, the president said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Mr Trump claimed Washington had warned Iran not to attempt to rebuild military capabilities at alternative sites, but said the regime had “ignored those warnings” and refused to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
According to the president, Tehran already possessed missiles capable of striking Europe and would “soon have had missiles capable of hitting our beautiful America”.
“Everyone was behind us — they just didn’t have the courage to say so,” he added, arguing that the US itself would have been under direct threat had it not acted.
“For almost 47 years this regime has been attacking the United States and killing Americans,” Mr Trump said. “Every time you see someone with a shattered face or killed violently, it was almost certainly the Iranians.”
He described the current campaign as the regime’s “last best chance to strike”, signalling that further action could follow.
Italy said on Monday that it was helping hundreds of its citizens to evacuate the United Arab Emirates (UAE), estimating there were currently around 30,000 Italian nationals there.
Speaking in the Italian Senate, Antonio Tajani, the foreign minister, said a group of 98 Italians had left the UAE for Oman on Sunday and would arrive in Rome later on Monday.
Another group of around 200 Italian students who had been stranded in Dubai is due to be evacuated on a UAE flight to Milan on Tuesday.
“We are creating corridors and networks of embassies to facilitate the movement of Italians to countries where there are flights available,” Mr Tajani said.