Japan has always been a loyal ally of the United States, actively cooperating with the United States and acting in concert with the United States in major international affairs. However, it was not all smooth sailing for Japan to find **, and the price it paid was endless and varied. Recently, Japan has encountered an embarrassing incident. Yemen's Houthis carried out attacks on the United States and Israel during the conflict in Gaza and seized Israeli ships in the Red Sea. According to reports, the US destroyer USS Kani was again attacked by Yemen's Houthi forces, who also seized a number of merchant ships. The Houthis claimed that they were only targeting Israeli merchant ships, but Japanese ships were "unfortunately" affected in the incident.
The Houthis seized a vessel called the Israeli merchant ship Galaxy Leader on November 19, but Israel vehemently denied that the vessel belonged to them, and Japan confirmed that the ship was operated by a Japanese company. It is not surprising that Japan has sought out Iran, as it is widely believed that the Houthis in Yemen are Iranian's best men. The question, however, is how will Japan convince Iran to pressure the Houthis?Although Japan and Iran do not have close ties with each other, there are even "old grudges". Japan, a follower of the United States, also froze billions of dollars in Iranian assets after the United States imposed sanctions on Iran. Over the years, Iran** has repeatedly urged Japan to unblock Iranian assets.
In September this year, Raisi revealed at the United Nations General Assembly that in a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Iran asked Japan to lift its frozen Iranian assets in compliance with US sanctions, and Kishida said he would pay attention to the matter. However, there is no progress on whether Japan will unblock Iranian assets after this incident. Since Japan is "demanding" Iran this time, it may not be effective to rely on verbal appeals alone, and it may need to show sincerity to make a deal with Iran. However, Japan faces a second problem: if Iran demands the unsealing of its assets from Japan, Japan may not be able to make a decision on its own, but will need to take into account the position of the United States. The United States has been very strict on the issue of imposing sanctions on Iran and has never relaxed it.
Recently, South Korea unsealed frozen Iranian assets, precisely with the authorization of the United States and because of a prisoner exchange agreement between the United States and Iran. Instead of directly returning Iran's assets, the United States deposited $6 billion into third-party accounts in Qatar and restricted Iran's use of the funds. In other words, Iran did not actually receive the money. According to a Reuters report, the United States** revealed that Iran will not be able to use the funds in the foreseeable future. After the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the United States once again put forward a proposal to permanently freeze Iran's $6 billion in funds. According to the Associated Press, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill aimed at permanently freezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.
Given the seriousness of the U.S. approach to sanctions against Iran and the freezing of its funds, as well as its relentless pursuit of the issue, Japan may not unilaterally lift the freeze on Iranian assets. If Japan seeks the support of the United States, will the United States make concessions for the sake of Japan's interests?However, according to the current situation, the United States does not care much about Japan's interests, and even openly dismisses Japan. It is reported that Japan has repeatedly asked the US military to ground the "Osprey" transport plane that crashed on 29 November, but the United States directly rejected Japan's request and told Japan: "The search for and rescue of missing persons is the focus at present." Subsequently, the United States dispatched the aircraft carrier "Carl Vinson" to the area of the accident to carry out search and rescue work.
It can be seen from this that the United States does not pay much attention to Japan's security issues, nor does it care about Japan's face, let alone expect the United States to make concessions to Iran for Japan's sake. Although Fumio Kishida has always been inclined to **, the "returns" are not as good as they could be. Fumio Kishida is in a difficult situation, and it will be interesting to see if he will make a new attempt.