TEHRAN – Iran’s Foreign Ministry has rejected claims made by an MP about the possible transfer of Iran’s islands to China, saying such claims deliver a “severe blow” to the national interests of Iran.

In a statement on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry called the remarks by Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash, the representative of Shazand in the Parliament, “basically mendacious”, adding that “such unfounded allegations” deliver a “severe blow to the national interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

MP Bighash has said in an interview with the IRIB that, under the Iran-China 25-year cooperation agreement, which is being negotiated by Tehran and Beijing, Iran was supposed to give China control over some of its islands.

"The Iranian islands were to be handed over to China," claimed the MP. 

But the Foreign Ministry firmly asserted that Iran will by no means give any kind of control over its islands to other countries.

Similarly, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that Iran will not give even a “handspan of its soil” to China within the framework of the 25-year partnership.

“We have not given and will not give a [single square] meter of [our] land or the exclusive right to take advantage of a handspan of Iran’s soil to China or any other country,” Zarif told ICANA in an interview published on Thursday.

In an interview with Tasnim, Bighash denied that he has made such a claim, saying, “I have read the draft of the Iran-China agreement and in no part of the text there is any discussion about leasing Iranian islands to China.”