Al-Monitor | Laura Rozen: When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe makes a�historic visit to Iran this week, he will do so with a rare nod from US President Donald Trump to see if he can facilitate US-Iranian dialogue to ease tensions. But with the Trump administration doubling down on its maximum pressure campaign�and Iran insisting on a US return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal before any new US-Iran talks, Abe has narrow room for maneuver.


�With regards to what Abe intends to achieve, it would depend on how far he is willing to carry the burden on his shoulders,� Koichiro Tanaka, the president of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, and a former Japanese Foreign Ministry official who worked on Iran, told Al-Monitor by email. �If he is trying to defuse some amount of tension, that could be achievable, knowing that it would be a short-lived one.�


�If he ventures to salvage the nuclear deal, or even start facilitating dialogue�between Tehran and Washington, then Abe will have to show, to the Iranian leadership beforehand, that he is not a mere messenger, or a puppet of Trump,� Tanaka said.


Read more here