But Rouhani said the country will remain vigilant: “We do not intend to trust countries like the United States simply because of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA)”. “We will catch them if they try to cheat”, he added.
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The White House said its lawyers assessed that the US could have faced a “significantly higher judgment” if the case continued and Obama said there “was no benefit to the U.S.in dragging this out”.
The freeing of the Americans and the certification of the nuclear deal, both Saturday, marks the beginning of a new era in U.S.-Iranian relations. 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.
On Sunday, world powers lifted crippling sanctions against the Islamic Republic in return for Tehran complying with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions.
“I’m so happy for those people and their families to be relieved of this agony”, said Ali Shakeri, an American businessman who is with the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California-Irvine and was imprisoned in Iran in 2007.
Several Americans, unjustly detained by Iran, will be coming home, Obama said. These sanctions and the new ones will continue to be enforced vigorously.
Iran accused the US of “acts of propaganda and harassment” on Monday after Washington imposed new sanctions against a number of individuals and entities involved in Tehran’s ballistic missile program.
In remarks shortly before the United States announcement, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani of Iran said that any new American sanctions would be “met by an appropriate response”.
He said Iran’s prospect for next year’s economic growth was at 5 percent, up from 3 percent in the current fiscal year.
Over multiple presidential administrations and through the Cold War, “the United States has never been afraid to pursue diplomacy with our adversaries”, Obama said.
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The president’s speech came at a time when his government was lifting billions of dollars in global sanctions on Iran as part of the worldwide nuclear accord.
