Last January 16, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that it had verified that Iran had abided by the agreement to restrict its sensitive nuclear activities.
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Iran will still be subjected to an arms ban prohibiting it from transferring ballistic missiles and other nuclear-related materials.
“Iran will respond to such (U.S.) acts of propaganda and harassment by seriously continuing its missile program and enhancing its defensive capabilities and national security”, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said at his weekly press briefing. “The United States also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful”.
Canada believes that the deal, “so long as it continues to be faithfully implemented, will effectively constrain Iran’s nuclear program”.
School girls follow the address of President Hassan Rouhani in Parliament, Tehran on Sunday.
“We talked about future cooperation, especially in the new atmosphere, and we partially drew the roadmap” for continued efforts, state television quoted Salehi as saying after the talks.
Shortly afterwards, the three left for a USA military base in Germany, arriving there later on Sunday, a State Department official said.
At the same time, Washington and Tehran announced an unprecedented exchange of four American-Iranians freed by Tehran with seven Iranians who were released and pardoned by the United States.
Another released Iranian-American, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, stayed behind.
The lifting of sanctions allows Iran to rejoin the global economy and begin selling its massive oil reserves in worldwide markets, which could drive the price to as low as US$10 a barrel within months.
Economic sanctions were designed to cut off access to money and goods and services, creating a bad situation for the regime.
The incident is a huge turnaround from just a few days earlier, when US-Iran relations seemed to be at a high point.
The Vienna agreement was nailed down after two years of negotiations following Mr Rouhani’s election.
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These obligations included Iran dramatically downscaling its nuclear programme, including slashing by two-thirds the number of centrifuges, which can make uranium suitable for nuclear power but also for a nuclear bomb.
