US President Barack Obama on Sunday (Jan 17) heralded the implementation of a nuclear deal and prisoner swap with Iran as a victory for diplomacy that would advance American interests and potentially spark more cooperative relations between Teheran and the world.
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Yet underscoring the strain that continues to exist between the USA and Iran, the Obama administration also announced new penalties Sunday on 11 individuals and entities involved in Tehran’s ballistic missile program.
And in a sign of those differences, Washington announced on Sunday its decision to impose new sanctions over Tehran’s ballistic missile program.
“It reflects a pattern we’ve seen in the Obama administration over and over again of negotiating with terrorists and making deals and trades that endanger U.S. safety and security”, Texas Sen.
The released Americans, plus a fifth US citizen released earlier, were part of a prisoner exchange negotiated in a separate side deal to the nuclear agreement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Iran had fulfilled its obligations under the nuclear deal that six world powers struck with Tehran.
U.S. officials said Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, and pastor Saeed Abedini were on the flight, but not Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari. “Yours is a great civilisation with a vibrant culture that has so much to contribute to the world in commerce and science and arts”.
Israel’s government and members of Congress have condemned the deal as caving in to the demands of Iran’s clerical rulers and said it doesn’t do enough to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Bayat said that implementation of the Additional Protocol will need more work by the IAEA, more financial resources and some steps which were not on the agency’s agenda so far.
Wang says China has played a constructive role throughout the negotiation process of the nuclear deal, and has made helpful proposals in thorny issues such as the uranium enrichment problem and the lifting of sanctions.
“This is a unsafe moment for America and our allies”, AIPAC said in a statement on Saturday.
“It actually pushed a lot of my friends away from the country just because of this”, said Pedram Farashbandi, who left Iran in 2005.
It drew a line under a standoff dating back to 2002 marked by failed diplomatic initiatives, ever-tighter sanctions, defiant nuclear expansion by Iran and threats of military action. The Syria talks would be the primary forum for that, he said. “It’s his free determination” whether he wants to stay in Iran, one official said. “I remember the morning a year and a half ago when a scratchy cell phone call told me Jason and his wife had been taken from their apartment the night before”, said Doug Jehl, the newspaper’s foreign editor.
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The Americans were exchanged for seven people charged or convicted of crimes in the United States, and the dropping of US cases against 14 others whose arrest was sought.
