China and Russia are both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, along with France and Britain, that took part in the original 2015 Iran nuclear deal preliminary framework agreement. Trump withdrew America from the accord in 2018, setting in motion years of tensions in the wider Middle East.

China will hold a meeting on Friday in Beijing with Russia and Iran on the Iranian "nuclear issue", its foreign ministry said, with both nations sending their deputy foreign ministers.

Iran won’t be bullied into negotiations with countries that haven’t fulfilled their prior commitments, its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, in an apparent rebuff to US overtures to start talks for a new nuclear deal.