Bonds between Iran, Kikaijima Shine as Concerns Rise over Iranians’ Safety During Ongoing Conflict

By Riichiro Seki / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

1:00 JST, April 23, 2026

Thirteen years ago, bonds were formed between an island in Kagoshima Prefecture and Iran.

It started when a bottle washed ashore on Kikaijima Island. Inside the bottle, which had been set adrift by an Iranian man, there was a message of peace.

The situation regarding Iran is increasingly volatile, and the island residents are hoping for a quick return to peaceful days.

In May 2013, island resident Yuko Kaimi, 62, found the bottle on the island’s western coast. The paper inside bore the name “Amir Kalantar,” the Iranian city of Ahvaz and a drawing of several people holding hands together.

Ryosuke Azuma, 50, who was working at the island’s tourism and local product association at the time, put Kaimi in contact with someone who might be able to help him find Kalantar: a Japanese man staying on the island who was planing to cycle across the Eurasian continent.

With the cooperation of local media, the author of the message was eventually found, and a video call was held in March 2015. It turned out that Kalantar was a chef on a tanker and had reportedly released the bottle into waters near Taiwan.

“I put my hopes for peace and my desire to get along with people all over the world into it,” Kalantar said. “I’m happy to have made a friend in Japan.”

A group of five people, including Iranian film director Reza Farahmand, visited the island in August 2015 to make a film about the encounter. During their nearly two-week stay, they filmed the island’s banyan trees and air-raid shelters built during the WWII. They also interviewed residents about the island’s culture.

Daichi Tanabe, 42, secretary general of the association, offered to transport the filmmakers between filming locations. The people involved would gather around the dinner table and sing the island’s folk songs together.

It was around the time that Iran had agreed to scale back its nuclear development, and the United States and others had promised to lift economic sanctions. Farahmand reportedly expressed his hope that “Japanese trading companies would expand into Iran, and economic activity would become more vibrant.”

The U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran began on Feb. 28. Tanabe learned from the news that damage had occurred even in Tehran, where the filmmakers live. He remembered how he had communicated with them in broken English and with gestures, and how they had treated him to curry made with spices they had brought with them.

“Are you all right?” he sent in a message via social media. However, it remains unread.

Kaimi worries. “I can only hope they’re safe and well,” he said.

Tanabe also looks forward to the day they can meet again. “They must also be strongly hoping for peace,” he said. “I want to sing island songs with them again.”

Long-lasting friendship

Japan and Iran established diplomatic relations in 1929 and have maintained friendly ties ever since, with the exception of the period around World War II.

In 1953, the United Kingdom called for a boycott of Iranian crude oil in opposition to Iran’s oil nationalization policy. However, a Japanese oil company secretly dispatched a tanker to purchase the oil. The episode is recounted in Iran as one that deepened the country’s bond with Japan.

Those ties continued even after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Exchanges at the civilian level also continue. Since 2004, Hiroshima-based NPO Moct has invited Iranian victims of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War to Japan to exchange views with atomic bomb survivors.

Shizuko Tsuya, 71, a representative of the NPO, “Even though our cultures and religions differ, we can come to understand one another through these exchanges.”