President Barack Obama said Sunday that USA diplomacy – and not another war in the Middle East – allowed for a nuclear deal with Iran and the release of five Americans from that country.
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The release of the prisoners and the nuclear deal developments capped weeks of intense U.S.-Iran diplomacy that took several unexpected turns after an Iranian ballistic missile test in October and then the detention on January 12 by Iran of 10 U.S. Navy sailors and their two boats in the Persian Gulf.
In a sign of those differences, Washington announced it had made a decision to target the Islamic republic’s ballistic missile programme with new measures.
“This is a good day”, Obama said in a statement Sunday from the White House.
“The agreement to free Americans imprisoned in Iran is a triumph of diplomacy that should be universally commended,”Parsi said”.
Months of negotiations resulted in the release of four Iranian-Americans from prison, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, in exchange for seven Iranians held in the US, six of them also dual nationals.
On Sunday, the US and Iran also settled a decades-old dispute over funds Iran had used to purchase military equipment from the United States. An administration official said, without elaborating, that detained US citizens had been released and those who wished to depart Iran had left.
The exchange involved Rezaian, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, former US Marine Amir Hekmati and a fourth man, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari.
While U.S. officials say Iran will only pocket about $50 billion of those assets after legal claims, the announcement of this new settlement could add fuel to the fire for critics who say the U.S.is funding a destructive regime.
Kerry, in defending the agreement, said that “Iran’s recovery was fixed at a reasonable rate of interest and therefore Iran is unable to pursue a bigger tribunal award against us, preventing United States taxpayers from being obligated to a larger amount of money”.
No names were immediately released in a statement from the judiciary outlining the decision, but among Iranian-American citizens in custody is Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent. For example, Most non-American companies will now be able to do business with Iran’s energy sector.
The Treasury also sanctioned five Iranian officials working at the country’s Ministry of Defense for Armed Forces Logistics, or MODAFL, and its subsidiaries for allegedly working on the ballistic-missile program.
“Within a few hours” of the nuclear deal being implemented and sanctions lifted “1,000 lines of credit were opened by various banks”, Rouhani told reporters in Tehran.
Obama said he was hopeful the events signaled an opportunity for Iran to work more cooperatively with the rest of the world.
When Iranian voters rallied behind Hassan Rouhani in 2013 as their surprise choice for president, they picked a reformer who promised to end the pain of global sanctions. “And we are going to remain vigilant about it”.
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But he still faces intense domestic opposition from hard-liners who believe he has given away too much and fear Iran’s opening to the outside world leaves it exposed to corrupting foreign cultural influences.
