Shortly after the IAEA ruling was issued, the United States suspended, but did not terminate, banking, shipping, steel and other sanctions, while the European Union fully lifted restrictions on trade, shipping and insurance.
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That also includes online payment options like those offered by U.S.-based PayPal Inc., which in March agreed to pay $7.7 million in a settlement with USA regulators over payments involving countries including Iran.
But he said the USA would “remain steadfast in opposing Iran’s destabilising behaviour elsewhere” – such as its missile tests.
Earlier Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said his country won’t trust a country like the USA “for the sake of a nuclear deal”. Several Iranian-Americans held in USA prisons after being charged or convicted for sanctions violations have also been released, their lawyers told Reuters on Sunday. Rezaian, Hekmati and Abedini are now undergoing physical and psychological evaluations at the USA military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
On January 17, a day after nuclear-related sanctions were lifted against Tehran, the United States announced fresh sanctions against Iranian companies and individuals linked to Iran’s ballistic-missile program. Iran said Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016 it successfully transferred some of the billions of dollars’ worth of frozen overseas assets following the implementation of the nuclear deal with world powers. It is estimated the sanctions relief could inject US$100 billion into Iran’s economy.
Iran denounced new economic sanctions imposed by the United States over its ballistic missile program as “illegitimate” and without “legal or moral legitimacy”.
All in all, Levitt says there are plenty of ways Iran can attempt to cheat on the terms of the nuclear agreement that is only beginning to be implemented now.
Airbus said on Saturday it had not yet held commercial talks with Iran, and businesses operating in the Islamic republic will continue to face big obstacles for the foreseeable future. The agreement front-loaded almost all of the requirements for Tehran to disable and dismantle key nuclear activities that had put Iran in noncompliance with its Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations.
Hingham native and Boston University graduate Matthew Trevithick was among the freed US captives, though officials said his release was not part of the prisoner swap.
What does the deal mean for Iran’s nuclear program? “There are just going to be things that come up that will benefit from diplomatic communication between the United States and Iran”, he said.
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Media reports indicate that swap was nearly scuttled when one prisoner’s wife and mother were kept away from US officials on the ground.
