On Tuesday Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, tentatively welcomed the lift of the U.S. economic sanctions and the completion of the nuclear deal, Reuters reports. He did not elaborate.
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He also announced economic sanctions against 11 individuals and entities as a result of a ballistic missile launch in October.
About resolving the three-decade old financial dispute with Iran, Obama said Tehran would be “returned its own funds, including appropriate interest, but much less than the amount Iran sought”.
The IAEA in December closed its long-running inquiry into whether Iran once had a secret nuclear weapons program, opting to support Tehran’s deal with world powers rather than dwell on its past actions.
“As previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran… responds with determination to such propaganda by accelerating its legal ballistic missile program and boosting defense capabilities”, he added, saying that as a defensive precaution, the missiles posed no threat to other nations.
Saudi-Iranian political rivalry has aggravated tumult across West Asia, but has escalated recently as Riyadh’s new rulers have taken a harder line and as the nuclear deal has relieved pressure on Tehran.
He said he’s seen a very positive reaction from Iranians he has contact with on social media.
In a reciprocal move, Obama said that six Iranian-Americans and one Iranian serving sentences or awaiting trial were being granted clemency. “We remain steadfast in opposing Iran’s destabilising behaviour elsewhere”, he said.
Noting that the U.S. has never been afraid to pursue diplomacy with adversaries, Obama said he decided that a strong, confident America could advance its national security by engaging directly with the Iranian government. Nicholas Burns, a former American diplomat and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, explains what the prisoner swap and sanctions mean for the U.S.-Iranian relationship going forward.
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“An overall number of 28 Iranians were freed or were relieved of judicial restrictions within the framework of the agreement”, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said in a press conference in Tehran on Monday.
