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Iranian Guardian Council Gives Final Approval To Nuclear Deal

In exchange, as soon as the worldwide Atomic Energy Agency verifies the steps, sanctions against Iran will be lifted.

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Under a landmark July deal between Iran and six major world powers, the Islamic republic will dramatically scale down its nuclear activities in order to render any effort to make an atomic bomb virtually impossible.

Within banks, preparations are in full force to include Iran into correspondent networks once again, but implementation could take a couple of months after the lifting of sanctions, as financial institutions are tired of penalties and fines.

“Nejatollah Ebrahimian, the council’s spokesman, said the body approved the parliamentary bill implementing the deal ‘by an absolute majority of the votes.’ He did not offer a voting breakdown”.

The 12-member Guardian Council could send the bill, which allows Iran to back out of the nuclear pact if sanctions are imposed or not lifted, back to parliament to reconsider. The other half are jurists, appointed by the head of the judiciary, Sadegh Larijani.

State television reported the news of the Guardian Council’s ratification but devoted more attention to a video clip showing what appeared to be an underground ballistic missile storage facility, interviewing a commander boasting about Iran’s missile capabilities.

The Iran nuclear deal wary Republicans in Congress were unable to block… Under the agreement, Iran was also required to cooperate with the IAEA and answer the agency’s questions about its nuclear program.

On Tuesday, hard-line lawmakers had sought to prevent its approval in parliament, but 161 lawmakers voted for implementing the nuclear deal, while 59 voted against it and 13 abstained. But the IAEA also wants to probe claims that at least until 2003, Iran conducted research into making nuclear weapons, including with explosives tests at the Parchin military base, something it also denies.

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Information for this article was contributed by Ali Akbar Dareini and Jon Gambrell of The Associated Press and by Thomas Erdbrink of The New York Times.

End of Iranian sanctions in sight as nuclear agreement approaches ratification