Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, at a signing ceremony, New Delhi, India, Dec. 12, 2015 (AP photo by Manish Swarup).

During his visit to New Delhi last December, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, pledged to transform India and Japan’s partnership into a “deep, broad-based and action-oriented relationship.” Behind the lofty rhetoric were several major developments, most of all finally reaching a consensus on the text of a bilateral civil nuclear agreement, long in the works, that would allow Japan to directly export nuclear plants to India. It would be signed, Abe and Modi said, once “technical details” were sorted out. In addition to the nuclear deal, they announced that Japan would provide $12 billion […]

EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria, Jan. 16, 2016 (AP photo by Ronald Zak).

It was a rare week of good news in the Middle East. Iran met its obligations to formally launch all the provisions of the nuclear agreement agreed to with world powers last July, an early demonstration of its commitment to radically restructure its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Tehran also surprised many observers with the quick release of 10 U.S. sailors detained last week after they inadvertently navigated into Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. Finally, in the latest step forward in building a more functional relationship between Washington and Tehran, the two sides completed secret negotiations […]