Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Iran from June 12 to 14 and hold talks with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rowhani, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihidi Suga said Tuesday.

He also told a news conference that Abe had spoken with US President Donald Trump earlier in the day, discussing the Iranian issue among other topics.

He said Abe would be the first Japanese prime minister to visit Iran in 41 years.

Trump, who visited Japan a few weeks ago, said he was open to talks with Tehran, in what appeared to be a green light for the Japanese to act as mediators with the Iranians, Japanese sources said.

Prior to Trump’s visit, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Tokyo in mid-May and told the official IRNA news agency that Zarif then discussed “the American measures and the tension that has provoked him.”

Trump and Shinzo Abe at a press conference in the Japanese capital Tokyo.

In May 2018, Trump announced that his country had withdrawn from the nuclear deal with Iran after saying that Tehran had not stopped its destabilizing behavior in the Middle East, despite benefiting from the easing of economic sanctions.
Trump: We do not seek to change the regime of Iran .. We will reach an agreement with them
quickly sent the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and a series of B52 strategic bombers and announced plans to send 1,500 troops to the region for Iranian threats.