{"id":7295,"date":"2020-01-02T13:28:19","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T10:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=7295"},"modified":"2021-05-30T13:56:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-30T10:56:21","slug":"iran-desperately-seeking-japanese-help-to-ease-us-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/iran-desperately-seeking-japanese-help-to-ease-us-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Desperately Seeking Japanese Help to Ease US Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2019, Iran and Japan<\/a> engaged in\ndiscussions to de-escalate tensions in the Gulf \nafter  oil tankers were struck in\nsabotage attacks that Iran was believed to have masterminded. By the end of\nthis year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to visit Tokyo. The\ntrip, initiated by Iran, signals its desire to ease economic pressures caused\nby US sanctions in exchange for Tehran committing to  ensuring maritime safety in the Gulf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan can play  a key\nrole in helping President Rouhani achieve \nhis desired goal.  The Japanese\nPrime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Iran earlier this year and he simultaneously\nestablished a close working relationship with US President Donald J. Trump.\nRouhani aims to use Abe\u2019s goodwill to break the impasse in talks between\nWashington and Tehran. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By visiting Japan, Rouhani is instilling confidence that the\ntime might be ripe for achieving his goal. \nIn recent months, he proposed the Hormuz Peace Initiative, a regional\nsecurity plan for the Gulf.  The\ninitiative aims to pull Iran out of isolation, after the United States imposed\nsanctions and withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, otherwise known as the Joint\nComprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States and Iran also recently exchanged prisoners<\/a>. The move was seen as a green light to open up channels for\ntalks. Right before the exchange took place, Iran\u2019s Deputy Foreign Minister for\nPolitical Affairs serving as the president\u2019s special envoy<\/a>,\nAbbas Araghchi, traveled to Tokyo in early December. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Araghchi made the Japanese aware of President Rouhani\u2019s\nintended visit to Tokyo by the end of this year. When Rouhani makes  his trip, it will be the second time that an\nIranian president has visited  Japan\nsince 2000. The United States has signaled its approval for the trip<\/a>\nand has asked Japan to share its outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan might succeed in opening up negotiations between the\nUnited States and Iran. Rouhani\u2019s trip to Tokyo points to Iran\u2019s willingness\nfor the first time to reach out to the United States outside the JCPOA\nframework. Until now, Iran has repeatedly insisted on holding talks with\nWashington only through the terms of the JCPOA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,  most signs<\/a>  indicate that Iran\u2019s\napproach to speaking with the United States via Japan could fail. Japan itself\nconsiders engagement with Iran helpful though it does not insist on\nplaying  a mediation<\/a> role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason is that Japan and Iran hold fundamentally\ndifferent points of view toward Gulf navigation. Iran promises to ensure   maritime security in the Gulf if it is able\nto export oil like all of its Gulf neighbors, which has become impossible since\nthe United States imposed sanctions on its oil sector. Japan is still\ninterested in buying Iranian oil<\/a>\nbut that is not the only reason for engaging with Tehran. Before US sanctions\nkicked in against Iran, Tokyo imported<\/a>\nonly 5.2 percent of its oil from the country. Japan needs Iran\u2019s assurance that\nshipping routes are safe in the Gulf because Tokyo imports 80 percent of its energy<\/a> from the Middle East and Asian\ncountries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran and Japan also disagree about how best to ensure\nmaritime safety in the  Gulf. Iran\ninsists that Gulf security should be upheld only through cooperation between\nthe Gulf states and without foreign power intervention.  The problem is that most Gulf states do not\ntrust Iran. As a result, only some of Iran\u2019s neighbors have welcomed the Hormuz\nPeace Initiative, but most view it with suspicion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, Japan has said that  it is considering sending  its defense forces <\/a>to\nthe Middle East to improve information gathering and safeguard commercial\nshipping operations. Tokyo will also send 270 sailors to guard<\/a>\nships in the Gulf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given these developments, there is no reason that Rouhani and Abe will see eye-to-eye concerning maritime safety in the Gulf when they meet later this month.\u00a0 Though Japan opted not to take part in the US Maritime Self-Defense Force to patrol the Gulf, Iran\u2019s \u201chardliners\u201d say that there is no\u00a0 point in making any promises to Japan when Rouhani<\/a> sees Abe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan does not buy Iran\u2019s oil because of US sanctions, which angers Iran\u2019s \u201chardliners\u201d. More importantly, Japan\u00a0 is not capable of circumventing US sanctions<\/a> or being an impartial mediator given its close relationship with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his trip to Japan, Rouhani could insist that without\nan end to the sanctions, Iran sees no prospect for fresh negotiations with the\nUnited States. But he may also seek to explore ways to keep the JCPOA alive,\nand  the United States committed to the\ndeal, to the extent that it would allow Iran to at least export some of its oil\nin exchange for ensuring Gulf navigation<\/a> safety. By doing\nso, Rouhani hopes that new opportunities will present themselves to de-escalate\ntensions with Washington. Taken in this light, his trip to Japan should be seen\nfor what  it is worth, a catalyst for\nmaintaining  channels of communication\nwith the United States but with no clear result in sight as of yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2019, Iran and Japan engaged in discussions to de-escalate tensions in the Gulf  after  oil tankers were struck in sabotage attacks that Iran was believed to have masterminded. By the end of this year, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to visit Tokyo. The trip, initiated by Iran, signals its desire to ease economic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3779,12,3778,3138,2466,237,2878],"class_list":["post-7295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-help","tag-iran","tag-japanese","tag-pressure","tag-rasanah","tag-us","tag-us-pressure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9177,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7295\/revisions\/9177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}