Many local Iranian-Americans who gathered in Westwood said they were encouraged by the deal.
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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.
A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Hossein Jaber Ansari, said “Iran’s missile program has never been created to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons”, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.
The United States announced on Sunday new sanctions relating to Iran’s ballistic missile program, a day after the Obama administration lifted sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program. A fifth prisoner, American student Matthew Trevithick, was released separately on Saturday, a US official said.
The action followed confirmation on Saturday by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna – the UN’s nuclear agency – that Iran has met all of its commitments under last summer’s landmark deal med at diminishing Iran’s atomic bomb-making capability.
“Iran is the greatest state sponsor of terror in the world”, Pletka said.
The Treasury Department sanctioned 11 individuals and companies working to advance Iran’s ballistic missile program.
The remarks, his first since the deal was implemented over the weekend, came in a letter to President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday.
Other Americans released were dual Iranian-American citizens Amir Hekmati, a former US Marine arrested in Iran in 2011, and Saeed Abedini, a Christian pastor from Idaho.
The network “obfuscated the end user of sensitive goods for missile proliferation by using front companies in third countries to deceive foreign suppliers”, the statement said, adding that the five people had “worked to procure ballistic missile components for Iran”.
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The nuclear talks have brought a sense of normalcy to relations with the USA and Iran, with top officials from each country in somewhat regular communication. “Iran has again shown the world that taking American hostages while Barack Obama is president can yield a diplomatic and military windfall”. The Iranian government said the collapse in oil price was part of a broader plot meant to undermine its national development. The prisoners are expected to arrive in the U.S. Sunday.
