Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads to Iran this week ona rare diplomatic mission, hoping to ease tensions between the Islamic Republicand Tokyo’s key ally Washington.
Tehran is locked in a bitter standoff with the US afterpresident Donald Trump withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal last year.
Washington has now reimposed sanctions and shifted troops tothe region, putting military and economic pressure on Iran, including byforcing US allies like Japan to stop purchasing Iranian oil.
Japanese government officials say Abe will not presentTehran with a list of demands, or deliver a message from Washington, andinstead want to position Japan as a neutral intermediary.
That could prove useful, said Michael Bosack, specialadviser for government relations at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-PacificStudies.
“Japan carries none of the historical or religiousbaggage of other potential mediators… (and) has demonstrated its willingnessto go its own way on Middle East policy,” he told AFP.
“These factors better position Abe for engagement withAyatollah Khamenei and mean that Japanese-proposed options could allowhardliners in Iran to entertain proposed off-ramps, without the potentialfallout that could come from accepting ‘Western’ solutions.”
Abe will meet President Hassan Rouhani and the country’sSupreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the June 12-14 trip — the first timea Japanese prime minister has visited Iran since 1978, a year before thecountry’s revolution.
Against that backdrop, Japan is hoping to lower thetemperature, officials say, with Abe winning Trump’s blessing for the mediationtrip when the US leader visited Tokyo last month.
“We believe it is extremely important that, at theleadership level, we call on Iran as a major regional power to ease tension, toadhere to the nuclear agreement and to play a constructive role for theregion’s stability,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said ahead of thetrip.
Iranian commentators said Abe could ferry messages betweenthe two sides.
“Mr. Abe’s visit comes right after meeting Mr. Trump inJapan, therefore the Americans are interested to use this channel,”Ebrahim Rahimpour, a former deputy foreign minister, told Iran’s Shargh dailyahead of the trip.
Iran will “announce our rights and stances and theother side can announce the messages that could be the US president’smessage,” he said.
But while Japan has long-standing ties with Tehran and warmrelations with Washington, experts say Abe has little leverage with either sideand mediation will be an uphill struggle.
The trip by the Japanese PM “faces substantialobstacles and is unlikely to bear fruit,” said Tobias Harris, an analystat Teneo consultancy group, in a note on the visit.
“While Japan has good relationships with countries onboth sides, these relationships do not necessarily translate intoinfluence,” he added.
Japan is not just the messenger — its own interests arealso at stake: before US sanctions were reimposed, Tokyo imported around fiveper cent of its oil from Iran and it would suffer from rising crude prices.
The trip also offers Abe a rare role as internationalstatesman, particularly given Tokyo’s disappointing recent diplomatic trackrecord.
Efforts this year to resolve a long-running standoff withRussia over a string of disputed islands have run aground.
And Japan has also found itself out of the loop on perhapsthe most pressing diplomatic challenge in its backyard: North Korea.
Abe “needs a diplomatic stunt as he faces an impasse onRussia and North Korea,” said Tetsuro Kato, political science professor atTokyo’s Waseda University.
But analysts cautioned that expectations would stay low fornow.
“Japan has never played an active role in MiddleEastern problems,” Kato told AFP.
“I don’t expect much in the way of results.”
Bosack said it would be “unrealistic” to expectquick outcomes from the visit.
“Right now, the focus is mitigating military conflict,which means Abe can employ shuttle diplomacy to keep communication going,”he said.
“That shuttle diplomacy alone may be enough tode-escalate tensions.”