Nuclear watchdog chief in Iran for talks after deal

The International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Iran had fulfilled its obligations under the nuclear deal that six world powers struck with Tehran.

The historic accord lifts US and European Union economic sanctions and grants Iran access to about $100 billion in assets in exchange for scaling down much of its nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday announced that nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran were being lifted.

He said Iran would respond by “accelerating its legal ballistic missile programme and boosting defence capabilities”.

Iran on Monday denounced the United States’ fresh sanctions over the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program, accusing Washington of hypocrisy.

Rouhani on Sunday said the implementation of the nuclear deal – negotiated with the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany – had “opened a new chapter” in Iran’s relations with the world.

Hardline newspapers Kayhan and Vatan-e-Emrooz splashed the news on their front pages, crowding out a triumphal speech by President Hassan Rouhani, who on Sunday hailed the lifting of the nuclear sanctions.

“We will be committed to the nuclear deal as far as the other side is”, Rouhani was quoted as saying by the state news agency, IRNA, at a meeting with IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. “Yesterday these families finally got the news they’d been waiting for”, he said referring to the U.S. nationals who have been released by Iran.

A senior Iranian official said four Americans freed under a prisoner swap deal were still in Iran and denied earlier reports suggesting they had already left the country.

The White House said its lawyers assessed that the USA could have faced a “significantly higher judgment” if the case continued and Obama said there “was no benefit to the U.S.in dragging this out”. The lifting of sanctions and the prisoner deal considerably reduce the hostility between Tehran and Washington that has shaped the Middle East since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979.

A United Nations resolution passed in July 2015 “called upon” Iran to refrain from ballistic missile testing as part of the pending nuclear agreement. The men have said they were selling parts for surge protectors that shield computers from thunderstorms, according to The Washington Post. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, waves to people who attend in Eid al-Fitr prayer the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Tehran.