Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has said that “arrangements” were being made for a phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian as war rages in the Middle East, AFP reports.

“I recall what I said yesterday was that we were making arrangements to do a telephone call with the Iranian president,” Takaichi said in parliament.

“We have to communicate both with the US and Iran, so we are seeking telephone calls with the presidents of both countries,” she told a upper house budget committee meeting.

Earlier Tokyo said that Iran had freed a Japanese national held since January, with Kyodo News reporting that the person was believed to be the Tehran bureau chief of broadcaster NHK.