VIENNA (AP) — The U.N. atomic agency announced Saturday that Iran has met all of its obligations under a landmark nuclear deal with six world powers.
Certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency will allow Iran to immediately recoup some $100 billion in assets frozen overseas and see huge benefits from new oil, trade and financial opportunities that will come after Western sanctions against Iran are lifted.
“Relations between Iran and the IAEA now enter a new phase,” said IAEA director general Yukiya Amano. “It is an important day for the international community.”
Earlier Saturday, Iranian Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held a series of meetings with his European Union and U.S. counterparts — including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry — on implementing the accord.
“All oppressive sanctions imposed against Iran will be annulled today,” Zarif said on Iranian state TV.
Progress also came Saturday on another area of Iran-U.S. tensions: U.S. and Iranian officials announced that Iranwas releasing four detained Iranian-Americans in exchange for seven Iranians held or charged in the United States.
U.S. officials said the four Americans — Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, pastor Saeed Abedini and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari — were to be flown from Iran to Switzerland on a Swiss plane and then brought to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, for medical treatment.
In return, the U.S. will either pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians — six of whom are dual citizens — accused or convicted of violating U.S. sanctions. The U.S. will also drop Interpol “red notices” — essentially arrest warrants — on a handful of Iranian fugitives it has sought.
Rezaian is a dual Iran-U.S. citizen convicted of espionage by Iran in a closed-door trial in 2015. The Post and the U.S. government have denied the accusations, as has Rezaian.
The landmark Iran nuclear agreement, struck July 14 after decades of hostility, defused the likelihood of U.S. or Israeli military action against Iran, something Zarif alluded to.
“Our region has been freed from shadow of an unnecessary conflict that could have caused concerns for the region,” he said. “Today is also a good day for the world. Today will prove that we can solve important problems through diplomacy.”
Iran insists all of its nuclear activities are peaceful. But under the July 14 deal, it agreed to crimp programs which could be used to make nuclear weapons in return for an end to sanctions. The agreement puts Iran’s various nuclear activities under IAEA watch for up to 15 years, with an option to re-impose sanctions should Tehran break its commitments.
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Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini contributed from Tehran
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Somewhere, John McCain is quietly weeping, “Bomb… bomb bomb… bomb… bomb Ir- >sob< -an…”
I am so pleased that this deal is working, despite Bibi’s and his fellow travelers’ attempts to queer the deal (I’m looking at you, Tom Cotton, Mark Kirk, and especially, Chuck Schumer).
…and TomCotton and his little buddy , BiBi are bellowing in anger…
Don’t forget the Saudis.
Now, had the republicans had their way, we would have bombed Iran 2 years ago and destroyed that reactor that is now unusable, because it has been filled with concrete. They would have tried to bomb the centrifuges, hidden in underground, bomb resistant bunkers…the same ones now disabled and under UN watch.
In other words, had we done what Bibi wanted 2 years ago and bombed Iran, they would be rebuilding the reactor, rebuilding their centrifuges and going full blast towards a nuke, feeling justified after being attacked by the US.
Instead, Iran is de-nuked and has no incentive to build a bomb. Its a GOP nightmare. Maybe now, they’ll be forced to notice that its not Iran, but our friends the Saudis who actually export the radical Islam that is the source of ISIS, Al Queda and most of the terrorism in the world.