ISTANBUL 

China on Friday slammed US sanctions on Chinese companies imposed over imports of Iranian oil.

Beijing has always opposed the use of “illegal unilateral sanctions” and “long-arm jurisdiction” and called on the US to "stop interfering with and undermining the normal trade and economic cooperation between China and Iran,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a news conference in Beijing.

The US State Department announced Thursday that it had sanctioned the Huaying Huizhou Daya Bay Petrochemical Terminal Storage, located in Guangdong, South China, for purchasing and storing Iranian crude oil from a sanctioned vessel and an oil refinery in Shandong, East China.

“'Teapot' refiners are private Chinese refineries that are the primary purchasers of Iranian oil. This will be the United States’ first designation of a teapot refinery,” the department said on the sanctioned refinery.

Mao, in response, stated that Beijing would take “all necessary measures” to "firmly" protect the legal rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.