For the moment, some officials say the administration is eyeing upcoming parliamentary elections in Iran.
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Canada’s recently elected Liberal government campaigned on a promise to accept 25,000 refugees by the end of the year. An Air Transat flight left from Amman, Jordan earlier today and is expected to arrive in Montreal at 6:30 p.m.
Other aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme seen as having potential to develop weapons, such as its uranium enrichment activity and a heavy water reactor, will be curbed under a deal Iran reached with big powers in July including Russian Federation. Israel and many American Jewish groups opposed the pact.
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The two countries are working to take their partnership to a new level, with Russian President Vladimir Putin visiting Tehran for the first time in eight years last month.
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President Obama said the agreement offers “the best chance to save the one planet we have”. He added: “I believe this moment can be a turning point for the world”.
Meanwhile, continuing in its appeasement mode, we learn that “the State Department is scrambling to confirm to Iran that it won’t enforce new rules that would increase screening of Europeans who have visited Iran and plan to come to America”.
“The visa waiver thing is absurd”, Zarif told The New Yorker in an interview published Friday.
Iran says changes to the USA visa-waiver program contradict the landmark nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers.
For Tehran, the nuclear agreement has brought about new conditions and it is trying to start new talks with the regional states on various issues including the fight against terrorism in a unified front. In other words, Iran is going to be treated better than some allies (Turkey, Jordan and many countries in our hemisphere, for example, who are not among the 38 countries eligible for visa waivers) throwing open a door for undesirables to enter the United States.
Listed by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism, Iran’s citizens – primarily those living in Europe – will now face additional travel hurdles.
Critics have accused the Obama administration of bending over backward to appease Iran.
Masoud Rezaei, the Iranian expert in worldwide relations at the Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies said on August 18 that “Obama is willing to involve Iran with the Middle East equations so that by assigning a regional role to Tehran, turn it from a centrifugal force into an agent of stability in the Middle East”, according to Iran Review website.
The new law stipulates that the program no longer includes dual nationals from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Sudan as well as anyone else who have traveled to those countries in the past five years. An official said the idea is to bring in a liberalised visa regime for the Iranians.
The new legislation came after the deadly attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California. He also said the provision “sends a very bad signal to the Iranians that the U.S.is bent on hostile policy toward Iran, no matter what”.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (R) meets President of the French Senate Gerard Larcher. If anti-deal elements win those elections, the future of the nuclear deal will be dim.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also said in a statement that “it was not and has never been Congress’s intent to allow the Administration to grant a blanket waiver to travelers from Iran in order to facilitate the implementation of the Iran deal”.
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