Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo arrived in Tehran Wednesday on a mission to ease tensions between Iran and the U.S., becoming the first Japanese prime minister to visit since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Abe's flight touched down at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport on Wednesday afternoon.
His visit is seen as an effort to mediate amid rising tensions in the Persian Gulf region. Just ahead of his arrival, Saudi Arabia said Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels attacked one of the kingdom's airports, wounding 26 people.
The Houthis said they fired a cruise missile at the Abha regional airport.
Though there were no fatalities, it was the largest number of civilians to be wounded in Saudi Arabia as a result of a rebel attack.
The heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington take root in President Donald Trump's decision a year ago to withdraw from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
