“Today will prove that we can solve important problems through diplomacy”.
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Vahid Salemi/AP The end of Iranian sanctions could see the country recoup some $100 billion in assets frozen overseas and see huge benefits from new oil, trade and financial opportunitie.
VIENNA (AP) – Iran’s foreign minister suggested Saturday that the United Nations atomic agency is close to certifying that his country has met all commitments under its landmark nuclear deal with six world powers, as he began a series of meetings with his European Union and US counterparts on implementing the accord.
Iran insists all of its nuclear activities are peaceful.
But even as the diplomatic maneuvering on the nuclear issue dragged on into the afternoon, progress appeared to be developing on another area of Iran-US tensions.
“There were many sceptics who said Iran would never deliver on its side of the bargain, but the independent International Atomic Energy Agency has said they have”.
As part of the deal, Iran released four jailed United States nationals, including the Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, in exchange for seven Iranians imprisoned or charged in the US.
The United Nations Security Council received on Saturday a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog confirming Iran fulfilled commitments under a nuclear deal with world powers, triggering an automatic end to most U.N. sanctions, diplomats said.
She was commenting on Sunday after the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Tehran has scaled down its nuclear program.
The deal, reached between six countries including the USA, with Iran was finalized six months ago.
But in an address to parliament he noted bitter opposition to Saturday’s lifting of economic curbs from arch foe Israel, some members of the U.S. Congress and what he called “warmongers” in the region – an apparent reference to some of Iran’s Gulf Arab adversaries.
USA officials said a fifth American detained in Iran, a student, has been released in an unrelated move.
The events suggest that the U.S.-Iran relationship “has some degree of momentum”, said Vali Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The U.S. captives in Iran had not committed any crimes and did not have intelligence ties, administration officials said, and Obama mandated that the United States not release anyone with terrorism ties or those who had committed violent crimes.
Vahid Salemi/AP Iranian Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has participated in the multi-party talks that eventually led to the lifting of sanctions against Iran.
“Today we have achieved Implementation Day of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”. “The point of the deal is to make Iran a more normal state, both in the way it behaves and the way it is treated in the world”.
That means a lot of sanctions against Iran will be lifted.
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Iran’s expected return to an already glutted oil market is one of the factors contributing to a global rout in oil prices, which fell below $30 a barrel this week for the first time in 12 years.
