Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, shakes hand with President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani. (Image via: LobeLog)

Despite Being Historical, Why Japan-Iran Visit Yields Null Result?

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Politics & Economic
International
Jul 06, 2019
1703
On Wednesday (12/6) last month, the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, held a 2-day state visit to Iran. The visit was historical for both Japan and Iran because Abe became the first Japanese official of the highest rank to visit Iran since 4 decades ago. Therefore, it was expected by the whole international community that the state visit would somehow change Iran’s train of thoughts.

Nonetheless, almost a month has passed by, and nothing worth mentioning happened. Many experts and political observers are currently wondering why. However, this might be the case.

Japan and the U.S. have quite a harmonious bilateral tie. Iran, on the contrary, is not in sync with the U.S. Just weeks before Abe’s Iran visit, President of the United States, Donald Trump, visited Japan. While talking with Abe, of course, Iran was one of the topics. Trump stated some “proposals” for Abe to take in order to be the solid ground for the first negotiation between Tehran and Washington.

These proposals were requests for Iran to lift their oil restrictions, banking interaction limits, and automotive industry sanctions.

Abe was supposed to convey these proposals when he was visiting Iran. Fortunately, when hearing the offer, Tehran seemed to agree and they were waiting for Abe to convey the proposals in person. As a matter of fact, Iran thought that Japan would become a good mediator between Tehran and Washington.

Japan itself is struggling to maintain a good economic relationship with Iran. Before U.S. sanctions, Japan used to import 30,000 barrels of oil from Iran. While for the automotive industry, Japan is trying to find a way out to keep the conveyor belts going.

However, just 4 days before the visit, Trump decided to call off the 3 proposals, and instead, he imposed economic sanctions on Iran’s largest petrochemical group, Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC), due to its ties with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Hence, when Abe met with the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, and Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, he did not mention any of those offers.

In other words, the solid ground which was supposed to be established by the Japanese visit was broken down by the U.S. itself. The sudden change of heart was suspected due to the devil’s advocates from anti-Iran hawks buzzing around Trump’s ears; thus, making Trump call those proposals off.

Fortunately, the visit bore 2 fruits for Abe. First was that Iran and its people sought peace. The second was that Iranian themselves considered the development of nuclear weapon as “haram” according to their religious statute (fatwa).

Source: https://ifpnews.com/exclusive/why-shinzo-abes-iran-visit-turned-into-failure/

Politics , Tension , U.S. , Iran , Mediation , Japan , Shinzo-Abe , State-Visit , Peace , Negotiation