Iranian foreign minister will head to China for talks, as Pentagon reveals financial cost of war

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi will visit China on Wednesday for talks, Beijing's foreign ministry has announced.

China, which is diplomatically aligned with Iran and economically exposed to the Middle East conflict, has continued to call for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement that would uphold Tehran's sovereignty and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

"Iranian Foreign Minister Araqchi will visit China on September 16, and Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister, will hold talks with him," a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a short statement published on the department's website.

It comes after President Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed Wall Street Journal reports that  Beijing had provided Iran with satellite imagery of a base in Jordan, aiding an Iranian attack that killed three U.S. troops in July.

Trump is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in the U.S. on September 24, though Beijing has yet to confirm the meeting.

Iranian strikes have damaged and destroyed "hundreds of buildings and structures" at U.S. bases in the Middle East, as well as "dozens" of U.S. aircraft as of the end of June, according to a government report.

The Iran war cost an estimated $33.4 billion as of June 29, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, which released a Lead Inspector General report to Congress on the Iran war Monday tracking the conflict up to the end of June. That includes $184 million in physical damage to U.S. diplomatic facilities in four countries—Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—from Iranian strikes, it said.

The expenditure of U.S. munitions during the conflict said had "resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply."

U.S. President Donald Trump posted before the release of the report that the U.S. "is producing more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History."

The report showed a fifth-generation F-35A damaged by enemy fire, the first time any aircraft of its type had suffered battle damage. Four F-15E fighter jets and an A-10 ground attack aircraft were destroyed as of the end of June.

The F-35A costs $92 million per plane, while the F-15E cost $31.1 million dollars in 1998, according to the U.S. Air Force.

Seven KC-135 refueling aircraft were damaged or destroyed, while seven helicopters and over 30 drones were lost.