TEHRAN (FNA)- President Hassan Rouhani is on a visit to Japan this week to discuss bilateral ties and Tehran’s security peace initiative for the Persian Gulf that could help defuse tensions in the volatile region.
Japan is a friendly country that makes proposals in good faith so that the interests of all in the region will be guaranteed. To this end, Prime Minister Shinzu Abe paid a visit to the Iranian capital to ease tensions between Tehran and Washington that went nowhere. This was not surprising.
- Thanks to Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, the region has been experiencing heightened tensions in the past few months, with several incidents such as attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf in May and June. For resource-poor Japan, it is vital to secure the safe navigation of ships in the energy-rich Middle East, including near the Strait of Hormuz. Tokyo's efforts are focused on resolving Iran's nuclear impasse with the US as well. The problem is that Tokyo has never said no to Washington’s foreign policy demands and anti-Iran campaign.
- Washington unilaterally pulled out of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with the world powers last year and re-imposed illegal sanctions to push for new negotiations that Iran has refused to consider until all sanctions are lifted. Although Japan maintains friendly ties with both the US and Iran and has tried to mediate between the two, it has always remained on the same page with Washington. Just like the European Union countries, Japan has never tried to help Iran to see the economic benefits of the nuclear deal, much less meet its commitments regarding buying oil and maintaining normal trade with Tehran.
- Abe travelled to Tehran in June and met with Rouhani and Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei to mediate between Tehran and Washington, marking the first visit by a Japanese premier to Iran in four decades. Since Iran has been gradually reducing its compliance with the nuclear deal, Abe will likely urge Rouhani to return to its commitments, which may not receive a positive response under the present circumstances that Washington's sanctions are in still in place. Rouhani is under immense pressure for his historic mistake of negotiating the nuclear deal from which the US walked out and suffered no international consequences. Rouhani has made it abundantly clear that he won’t make the same mistake of talking to the US ever again.
- With or without Japan acting as mediator, Tehran has declared repeatedly that the reduction of nuclear compliance would be reversed only when the country's economic problems are addressed through mechanisms enabling Iran to export its oil and repatriate its revenues. So far, and just like Japan, other signatories to the nuclear deal, including the UK, France and Germany, have been under pressure from the US, unable and unwilling to reverse the bans and sanctions on Iranian economy.
- Some analysts believe that Rouhani's Japan visit won’t result in much progress in the situation to help achieve the desired outcome. Although he has stressed that expanding bilateral ties with Japan is the primary goal of his visit, Tokyo has continued to support Washington’s anti-Iran policies nonetheless, and there’s no reason to think this time it would be otherwise. Japan will never help Iran to establish mechanisms that can bypass US sanctions and restrictions without Washington's consent. But there is no denying that President Rouhani's visit is presenting an immense chance and opportunity for Tokyo to make huge profit from Iran's lucrative market. So, one way or another, this is official Japan that should decide if it is willing to take such a rare chance.
- Japan was a major importer of Iranian oil before the US threatened penalties against nations who did business with Iran. It also froze Iranian assets after the US imposed sanctions on Tehran. So, the two nations and many others in the world are waiting to see if the Japanese premier would go to unfreeze Iran’s frozen assets no matter what the US says.
The visit to Japan on December 19-20 comes in the backdrop of President Rouhani's recent statement that he won’t be looking to Abe to try and advance possible US-Iran mediation efforts. The hope is that there will still be a chance in Tokyo to develop bilateral economic, trade, banking and energy ties between the two Asian nations.
Hence, the bottom line is that we should wait and see if the Bank of Japan, for instance, will release Iran's frozen assets to enable ties to move ahead or Japan has any other plan to develop bilateral relations with Tehran.
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