Apr 10, 2021
The New York Times ran an article under the headline “Iran and U.S. Agree on Path Back to Nuclear Deal,” reporting that the two nations “agreed to try to synchronize Washington’s lifting of sanctions and Iran’s limiting of uranium enrichment.” While welcoming the good news from Vienna, few in Tokyo seem to be optimistic.
As a student of Middle East politics since 1978, I am one of those skeptics in Japan. The Times wrote that Washington and Tehran had agreed through intermediaries to establish two separate working groups to try to get the two nations “back into compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.” I sincerely hope they eventually will.
Salvaging the Iran nuclear deal japantimes.co.jp - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from japantimes.co.jp Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Apr 4, 2021
Last week, a massive container ship wedged itself between both banks of the Suez Canal in Egypt, completely blocking the waterway and affecting 10% of the world’s trade traffic. I could not keep silent about the matter, having been to the canal several times, as I spent two years beginning in 1979 in Cairo studying Arabic during my training stage at the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
It was indeed a perfect diplomatic dilemma: The container ship was a Japanese-owned, Taiwanese-operated, German-managed, Panamanian-flagged and Indian-manned behemoth of a vessel that now finds itself under Egyptian jurisdiction. I cannot think of any other maritime crises more complicated and multi-faceted than this one.
Mar 11, 2021
The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific policy is taking shape. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that U.S. President Joe Biden will meet virtually on March 12 with his counterparts in the Quad Japan, India and Australia and that it would be the first time that the Quad is meeting “at the leader level.”
The office of the Indian prime minister echoed the announcement, saying that the Quad summit “will discuss regional and global issues of shared interest, and exchange views on practical areas of cooperation towards maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific,” including COVID-19, economic cooperation and the climate crisis.