China and Laos will jointly hold a humanitarian and medical joint rescue exercise later this month, said Defense Ministry spokesman Jiang Bin at a press conference in Beijing on Friday.
The exercise, dubbed "Peace Train-2026," will be held in Laos, according to Jiang.
"The exercise takes international humanitarian medical rescue in a super typhoon disaster as its theme. It focuses on such training subjects as joint on-site search and rescue, casualty evacuation, health and epidemic prevention, and psychological rescue. During the event, the Chinese side will also provide medical services for Lao military personnel and civilians," said Jiang.
"As the sixth exercise of this series, it will further deepen and expand pragmatic exchange and cooperation in such fields as disaster medical rescue, tropical disease control and prevention, and infectious disease prevention and control, enhance the two militaries' capabilities in joint medical-service command, joint rescue, and joint prevention and control, and better provide quality public security goods for regional countries and peoples," said the spokesman.
China, Laos to hold joint humanitarian, medical rescue exercise: spokesman
Iran has warned regional countries that any support for the United States in the event of a renewed armed conflict would be regarded as a hostile act toward Tehran, an Iranian official said on Friday.
Iran would be able to identify which regional states are prepared to back American forces if military action resumes, said Fada Hossein Maleki, a member of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, speaking with Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
He added that in such a scenario, Iran could take actions beyond strikes on the military bases of those countries, and those countries themselves will be classified as hostile states.
Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on the same day that the United States has spent 11 billion U.S. dollars in taxpayers' money on missile defense for Israel within the past three years.
"It has fired more interceptors defending Israel than Israel has," Araghchi said. "That is not a symbiotic relationship. It is a parasitic one."
The U.S. and Israeli militaries have drawn up concrete plans to launch another military strike on Iran after the U.S. midterm elections, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing U.S. officials and other informed sources.
However, it remains uncertain whether U.S. President Donald Trump will approve the plan.
A senior Iranian security official has warned that global energy markets will remain volatile "for the next three years" if the U.S. continues its current pressure campaign against Iran.
"Perpetuating the current situation will carry strategic consequences, not least that the energy markets will not find calm for the next three years," Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei said in an interview, published Thursday, with U.S.-based news outlet Drop Site News.
Rezaei said that if another war is imposed on Iran, Tehran still has the capacity to launch missiles and drones at various U.S. assets across the region and will expand its target list to include "cables, data centers and artificial intelligence facilities."
The official also said Gulf states "are rapidly redefining their relationship with Iran" as they realize that "the U.S. military is incapable of defending its own bases."
Iran warns regional countries against support for US in case of renewed armed conflict
