China has said it “strongly condemns” the United States and Israel’s assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling again for a halt to military actions, AFP reports.

The killing was “a serious violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security, a trampling on the aims and principles of the UN Charter and the basic norms of international relations,” Beijing’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this,” it added, calling for an “immediate halting of military operations”.