China’s new train line to Iran sends message to Trump: We’ll keep trading anyway
2018-05-12 09:29:06 source：The Washington Post
May 11, 2018
New freight train connections usually have limited potential to make global headlines, but a new service launched from China on Thursday could be different. Its cargo — 1,150 tons of sunflower seeds — may appear unremarkable, but its destination is far more interesting: Tehran, the capital of Iran.
The launch of a new rail connection between Bayannur, in China’s Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, and Iran was announced by the official news agency Xinhua on Thursday. Its exact path was not described in the dispatch, but travel times will apparently be shortened by at least 20 days in comparison to cargo ship. The sunflower seeds are now expected to arrive in Tehran in about two weeks.
While the seeds are making their steady progress across Asia, there’s a growing risk of Iran and Israel breaking into open conflict in the meantime. French President Emmanuel Macron has already predicted that the U.S. decision to pull out of the Iran deal would lead to war, especially after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that his country may restart suspended elements of its nuclear program if U.S. sanctions are imposed. Iranian rocket attacks Wednesday and subsequent Israeli retaliatory attacks early Thursday indicated how quickly the situation could escalate.
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