China’s Top Shipper Resumes Middle East Trips Amid Iran Ceasefire Talks

COSCO Shipping Lines, China’s largest shipping company, has officially resumed new booking services for container shipments from the Far East to several key Middle Eastern destinations, with the United States and Iran currently engaged in ceasefire talks, despite statements by Tehran that the U.S. military is “negotiating with itself”. COSCO has reinstated bookings for standard general cargo containers to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq after declaring to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that “non-hostile vessels” from countries not participating in or supporting aggression against Iran would be granted safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz….