Mehdi Safari said on Sunday that China is looking for a reliable supplier of energy as its imports of oil have more than doubled in six years to reach 11 million barrels per day, Press TV reported.

Safari said China is already importing nearly half of its oil needs, around 5.5 million bpd, from the Persian Gulf region where Iran has the most dominant presence due to the stretch of its coasts.

“China says that it will guarantee, as part of a mutual guarantee, to buy Iran oil for the next 25 years,” Safari told Tasnim News Agency.

He said a main reason for Beijing to seek a long-term energy partnership with Iran is the pressure imposed by the United States on China in the South East Asia region, prompting it to increasingly look westward to revive the so-called New Silk Road through territories like Iran.

Safari said the comprehensive partnership deal with China could entail many benefits for Iran as well, including a surge in arrivals of Chinese tourists into the country.

“The Chinese send 250 million tourists (to other countries) each year. If only one million of them arrive in Iran, that would deeply change our economy,” said the former envoy.

Neither Iran nor China have given any concrete details about a potential long-term agreement that has yet to be finalized.

However, leaks have suggested that China would invest around $400 billion in Iran’s energy and infrastructure sectors over 25 years in return for taking delivery of a stable supply of energy from Iran.

In remarks published on Saturday, Reza Zabib, a foreign minister aide for South Asia, dismissed “the hypothetical figures” reported in the media about Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, saying nothing has yet been finalized about the deal.

“The objective of those who spread this disinformation is to destroy the (bilateral) relations, to prevent the signing of the deal and to pile accusations on the (Iranian) government and system,” said Zabib.

The Iranian diplomat also said that scaremongering about the deal is an attempt by certain political elements inside Iran to extract information about the deal and to force the Iranian government to disclose more information about the ongoing talks with China.

He said that Iran and China are now in agreement about at least 75 percent of the terms of a draft deal that was proposed by Iran during a visit to Beijing last year by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zabib said that the Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership will allow the two countries to expand ties in three main fields of politics, military, and economy.

He said that the economic part of the agreement would cover a wide range of areas, including energy, technology, and infrastructure.

Zabib’s comments come against the backdrop of criticism suggesting that Iran has offered major discounts on its future sales of oil to China in return for Beijing’s long-term and sizable investment in the country.

Iranian authorities have dismissed the claims while also insisting that the potential deal with China would not be attempt to offset the failure of a 2015 nuclear agreement involving major Western powers.

Zabib said China has always been a major economic partner for Iran, even at the times of normal relations between Tehran and some Western countries.

Iranian president’s chief of staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, also dismissed as “illusions” some speculations about the 25-year cooperation agreement with China, saying the roadmap does not entail foreign control on Iranian islands or the presence of military forces by any means.

Vaezi said the 25-year agreement with China defines a roadmap to mutual cooperation without any discussion about Iran’s southern islands or deployment of military forces.

The media speculations about the deal are just “illusions and rumors” spread by certain parties who try to disrupt Iran’s relations with China, he said.

Vaezi said the frameworks of the agreement have been defined, but it has not been finalized yet.

Any binding agreement must be ratified by the Iranian Parliament, so that nothing would be hidden from the country’s legal bodies, he underlined, assuring the people that the agreement with China would comply with the Iranian Constitution.

Press TV and Tasnim contributed to this story.