Obama credits ‘diplomacy’ for effective nuclear deal with Iran

Obama said he was hopeful the events signaled an opportunity for Iran to work more cooperatively with the rest of the world.

“The US sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile programme… have no legal or moral legitimacy”, foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said in a televised news conference.

“When Americans are freed, that’s something we can all celebrate”, Obama said.

As part of the prisoner swap, the U.S. offered clemency to seven Iranians – six of whom are dual U.S.-Iranian citizens – who had been accused or convicted of violating U.S. sanctions, according to CBS News.

The U.N. nuclear agency certified Saturday that Iran has met all of its commitments under last summer’s landmark nuclear deal, crowning years of U.S.-led efforts to crimp Iran’s ability to make atomic weapons.

A senior White House official told the newspaper that the USA needed to prioritize the release of American nationals and did not plan to curb the sanctions on Iran permanently. The first two being the implementation of the nuclear deal and the freeing of the Americans imprisoned in Iran, including Washington Post reporter correspondent Jason Rezaian, and the third was the settlement of a years-long lawsuit between Iran and the US.

Obama credits the new approach as having helped to free the detained Americans.

Obama said that, despite the prisoner swap and the implementation of the nuclear deal, “there are profound differences” between the two countries.

Rubio said that the deal shows “weakness” on the part of Washington, and if he were elected president, Iran would not dare to detain Americans because it would face tough consequences.

“Whereas Tehran was expanding its nuclear, program, we have now cut off every single path that Iran could have used to create a bomb”, he said.

A day after lifting economic sanctions against Iran for meeting the terms of the nuclear agreement, the USA announced new, limited sanctions against several Iranian citizens and companies for helping Iran’s ballistic missile program.

“Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security, and it will continue to be subject to worldwide sanctions”, Adam J. Szubin, acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a written statement. “We’ll know if Iran ever tries to break it”.

“From Presidents Franklin Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan, the United States has never been afraid to pursue diplomacy with our adversaries” he said.