Foreign Secretary welcomes lifting of sanctions as Iran honours nuclear deal

A report by the semi-official ISNA news agency quotes a statement from the Tehran prosecutor’s office as saying the inmates were freed “within the framework of exchanging prisoners”, without elaborating.

But under the July 14 deal, Iran agreed to crimp programs which could be used to make nuclear weapons in return for an end to sanctions.

The European Union began the process of lifting economic and financial sanctions on Iran, implementing a landmark 2015 deal between world powers and Tehran, and paving the way for EU business to return to the country of 80 million.

“This is a good day for the Iranian people… and for the world”, he told Iranian media.

Other restrictions that the bloc imposed on Iran over human rights violations will stay in place since they were not part of the deal over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The incident follows new footage released by the Navy of Iranian Revolutionary Guard vesselsfiring rockets near warships and commercial traffic in the strategic Strait of Hormuz late last month, a move raising tensions between the two nations despite the recent nuclear deal.

The Post and the U.S. government have denied the accusations, as has Rezaian.

In turn, the U.S. will pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians – six of whom are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens – accused or convicted of violating U.S. sanctions.

This means tens of billions, and by some estimates over $100 billion in Iranian assets, frozen in the West, will be freed up, and Iran will be able to sell its oil internationally like any other country.

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.

“Through a diplomatic channel that was established with the focus of getting our detained USA citizens home, we can confirm Iran has released from imprisonment four Americans detained in Iran”, one of the USA officials said.

Responding to the delay, Zarif, in a tweet, said: “Diplomacy requires patience”.

He met US fugitive Dawud Salahuddin, the last man known to see him.

Oil is at its lowest price in more than a decade, in part because of expectations Iranian crude will flood the market, and Iran’s currency has declined precipitously. As night fell in Vienna, there was no confirmation that a Swiss aircraft that was to carry the Americans out of Iran had yet taken off. “All of Iran’s paths toward a nuclear weapon have been stopped”. Their end marks a major victory for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his allies, who swept into power in the 2013 elections on a platform of reinvigorating the country’s ailing economy and thawing its relations with the West. The timing is also politically fortuitous as Iranian voters go to the polls on February 26 for the country’s legislative elections. But the family of one of the U.S prisoners received unofficial word from Iran that their relative was being released today, according to a person close to that family who spoke on condition the family not be identified.

After the certification, President Obama issued executive orders lifting worldwide economic sanctions.

December – A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate assesses with high confidence that Iran was working to develop nuclear weapons until the fall of 2003, when it halted weapons work. “They couldn’t believe it”.

The new relationship unfolding between Washington and Tehran, after more than 30 years of bitter antagonism, could be Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, but it was also sure to remain a political flashpoint in the United States.