All countries should enjoy freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, China and Djibouti said in \u200ba joint statement following a meeting of their foreign ministers in \u200cBeijing, expressing concern about the deteriorating security situation.<\/p>\n
Djibouti sits on the other side of the Bab ed-Mandeb Strait from Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthis have been battling Saudi-backed government forces and seeking to control the \u200bwhole Yemeni Red Sea coast, disrupting some shipping.<\/p>\n
In 2017, China formally opened its first \u200boverseas military base in Djibouti. The barren former French colony, which is \u2060about the size of Wales, is sandwiched between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia and \u200balso hosts US, Japanese and French bases.<\/p>\n
The joint statement, released early on Thursday, said both \u200bChina and Djibouti stressed the importance of maintaining freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the strait, and “emphasised that the right of merchant ships of all countries to \u200bexercise navigation rights in accordance with international law should be respected”.<\/p>\n
“Both sides \u200bbelieve that in governing and securing the Red Sea, the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and wishes \u200cof \u2060the Red Sea littoral states should be genuinely respected, avoiding any increase in the overall security risks of the region.”<\/p>\n
China supports the littoral states of the Red Sea in “constructively maintaining” the safety and smooth flow of international \u200bshipping lanes, said the \u200bstatement, carried by \u2060China’s official Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n
Neither country wants regional tensions to spill further into the Red Sea, and “major powers outside \u200bthe region” should respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity \u200bof regional \u2060countries, and avoid resorting to force and unilateral sanctions, it added.<\/p>\n
The statement came as the US State Department ordered some diplomats and family members to depart from \u2060its \u200bmissions in Saudi Arabia following the escalation of \u200bthe fighting in Yemen, which has opened another front in the regional conflict triggered by the US-Israeli \u200bwar on Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All countries should enjoy freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, China and Djibouti said in \u200ba joint statement following a meeting of their foreign ministers in \u200cBeijing, expressing concern about the deteriorating security situation. Djibouti sits on the other side of the Bab ed-Mandeb Strait from Yemen, where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33],"tags":[5541,396,452],"class_list":["post-22355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-bab-ed-mandeb-strait","tag-china","tag-djibouti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22357,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22355\/revisions\/22357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}