Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State has asked China to encourage Iran to not shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
The statement came forward after US attacked Iran and now the Middle Eastern country may close the strait, through which around 20 per cent of global oil and gas flows.
“I encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them about that, because they heavily depend on the Straits of Hormuz for their oil,” said Rubio.
He said that its economic suicide for them. He added, “If they do that, it will be another terrible mistake. It’s economic suicide for them if they do it. And we retain options to deal with that, but other countries should be looking at that as well. It would hurt other countries’ economies a lot worse than ours.”
According to Reuters, Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately provide comment on this matter.
Rubio said the US mission “was not an attack on Iran, it was not an attack on the Iranian people. This wasn’t a regime change move. This was designed to degrade and/or destroy three nuclear sites related to their nuclear weaponisation ambitions, and that was delivered on yesterday.”
Strait of Hormuz is a critical choke point between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
