The agreement is in a few days supposed to reach a critical point when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announces that Iran has met all the basic conditions placed by the other partners in the agreement, thus permitting the removal of sanctions that the West put in place when Iran refused to stop enriching uranium and progressing towards a nuclear bomb. The incident has been described as the result of an unspecified error, possibly a mechanical failure on one of the boats or a mistake of navigation, and its significance was swiftly downplayed by the Obama administration, which predicted that the Iranians would release the 10 sailors within about a day’s time.
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He said in the coming days but others said an announcement could come as soon as Friday. “As we speak, Iran has rolled back its nuclear program, shipped out its uranium stockpile, and the world has avoided another war”, the president said.
Iran will sell part of its stock of heavy water to the United States under its nuclear deal with world powers, its deputy atomic chief said.
It was precisely because of that lack of trust that talks to reach a deal took more than two years.
An important step to the same effect is for Iran to remove the sensitive core of its Arak nuclear reactor.
But Rouhani has faced criticism from hardline groups about the nuclear deal, with opponents warning it could lead to “infiltration” by the United States.
This comes as the top USA diplomat was informed by the Iranian side that the core of the Arak nuclear reactor had been taken out, and will soon be destroyed. Barack Obama was about to make his last presidential State of the Union address while the House of Representatives was preparing to consider a bill demanding sanctions linked to illegal Iranian missile tests last December, provocatively close to U.S. warships. Iran denies the incident; the Pentagon released video footage of it this week.
After the Sunni-dominated Saudi government executed a Shiite Muslim cleric who was a prominent political critic, ignoring US pleas to spare his life, Iranian protesters stormed and burned the Saudi Embassy in Tehran while police reportedly stood by.
Kerry has credited Zarif with helping bridge the deep mistrust between the U.S. and Iranian governments after decades of estrangement and has remained in contact by phone with him in the months since the nuclear deal was negotiated. The Iranians immediately said that the nine American men and one American woman would be released but that their two vessels would be indefinitely kept there.
As NPR’s Michele Kelemen notes, “Iran clearly had reason to resolve this quickly”.
What is the nuclear deal? The American military claimed, however, that the route in the gulf between Bahrain and Kuwait was nowhere near Iranian borders and that indeed the operation had been premeditated by the Revolutionary Guard who boasted on their own state-run television, Fars News Agency, that the sailors were being held hostage and that they had been “arrested”.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif before a meeting in Geneva January 14, 2015. The IAEA will, however, continue to regularly report to its member states on Iran.
