U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, departs London on his way to Vienna, Austria for what is expected to be “implementation day” of the Iran nuclear deal following the release of the final report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016.
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Iran ended years of economic isolation when world powers lifted the crippling sanctions against the Islamic Republic on Saturday in return for Tehran complying with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions. “The future is as important as the landmark we’ve reached today”.
“Today, as a result of the actions taken since last July, the United States, our friends and allies in the Middle East and the entire world are safer because the threat of a nuclear weapon has been reduced”.
Many of President Obama’s critics say the deal may be risky to the USA, and that Iran may use their unfrozen assets to support terrorism and towards building a nuclear weapon, the New York Times reported.
The IAEA’s confirmation that Iran had fulfilled its commitments under the nuclear deal also automatically ended most United Nations sanctions on the country. Its nuclear facilities will be under constant and rigorous monitoring, and global inspectors will be able to go anywhere in Iran where they suspect covert nuclear activities may be occurring.
These will include sanctions on Iran’s lifeblood oil exports and open up the 80-million-strong country to business.
United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond welcomed the implementation of the deal.
He highlighted angry reactions of Saudi Arabia and Israel to the diplomatic efforts on the Iranian nuclear file, saying the two regimes are merely irked by the lifting of anti-Tehran sanctions.
In exchange Washington said it had granted clemency to seven Iranians, six of whom were dual US-Iranian citizens, and dropped charges against 14 more.
United States officials declined to confirm the release of the four U.S. prisoners until the plane taking them to Switzerland and then on to Germany, for medical checks at a USA military base, had left.
The European Union on Saturday started the process of lifting sanctions on Iran after the bloc’s foreign policy service took note of an IAEA report.
The low-key legal steps were followed by Iran’s announcement via state media that it was freeing four Iranian-Americans, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has scheduled a visit to Italy and France at the end of January. The agreement lifts nuclear-related sanctions but “it doesn’t touch the sweeping ban on US trade and investment with Iran put in place by the Clinton administration in 1995”, notes the Guardian.
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“Iran was one of the major trading partners before the sanctions and had good relations with Korean companies”, said Eom Chi-sung, an official at the Federation of Korean Industries.
