Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has travelled to Tehran to warn that an “accidental conflict” could be sparked amid heightened tensions between Iran and the US.
Abe’s message on Wednesday came hours after Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Saudi airport, wounding 26 people.
The prime minister’s trip is the highest-level effort yet to de-escalate the crisis as Tehran appears poised to break the 2015 nuclear deal it struck with world powers, an accord the Trump administration pulled out of last year.
It’s also the first visit of a sitting Japanese premier in the 40 years since the Islamic Revolution.
But success may prove difficult for Abe, as the Houthi rebel attack on Saudi’s Abha regional airport underscored.
Separately, the front page of the Iranian daily Farheekhtegan, or Educated, published on Wednesday morning a picture of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear blast – a reference to America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
“How Can You Trust A War Criminal, Mr Abe?” the newspaper asked in dual English and Farsi headlines.
Read the article by in The Canberra Times.