TEHRAN – Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan has revised its travel advisory for Iran, upgrading it from "avoid unnecessary travels" to "travel with caution", ISNA reported on Friday.

"Now, Japan has changed [its] Iran's security map from level two to level one, in which there is no security consideration for Japanese citizens to travel to the Islamic Republic," said Seyyed Abbas-Ali Emamieh, the secretary of the consortium of incoming tours from Korea and Japan at the Association of Air Transport and Tourist Agencies of Iran (AATTAI).

The current notification, however, urges Japanese citizens to reconsider travel to the Islamic Republic due to the suggested additional caution concerning coronavirus pandemic, he said.

"Japan shows the security and health levels of countries in two separate maps; [in early 2020] Iran's security map was changed [to level two] following the martyrdom of Lieutenant-General Qassem Soleimani and the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane, in which no travel agency in Japan was allowed to arrange tours of Iran, and Japanese citizens were warned to leave Iran immediately," Emamieh explained.

On January 3, 2020, a U.S. drone strike assassinated the Lieutenant-General in an act of retaliation, Iran fired missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq on January 8. The Ukrainian airliner was accidentally shot down by Iran’s air defense as it was on high alert in the tense aftermath.

Iran embraces hundreds of historical sites such as bazaars, museums, mosques, bridges, bathhouses, madrasas, mausoleums, churches, towers, and mansions, of which 26 being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Under the 2025 Tourism Vision Plan, the country aims to increase the number of tourist arrivals from 4.8 million in 2014 to 20 million in 2025.

AFM