Iran president hails implementation of nuclear deal

United States President Barack Obama on Saturday signed an executive order to lift sanctions on Iran related to its nuclear program, the White House said.

Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement confirming the IAEA has verified that Iran “has fully implemented its required commitments”.

Iranian Foreign minister Javad Zarif meets with EU Representative Federica Mogherini after IAEA announces compliance on the nuclear deal.

Senator Marco Rubio accused the Obama administration of not pushing hard enough for the American prisoners’ release when the U.S. negotiated a deal with Iran a year ago.

As for most US companies, decades-old sanctions resulting from Iran’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism will remain in place and prevent direct dealings in most cases, but there will still be some new business opportunities available through subsidiary companies, and the USA aircraft industry has been granted a waiver so they can sell civilian airplanes to Iran if they want.

The warning from Israel, the Middle East’s sole but undeclared nuclear power, came as world powers, including the United States, lifted sanctions on Iran under a historic nuclear deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Washington maintains separate, less comprehensive sanctions on Iran over its missile programme. “It is an important day for the global community”.

“We also know without a doubt that there is not a challenge in the entire region that couldn’t become much more complicated, much worse, if Iran had a nuclear weapon”.

Who are the Americans released?

While the secretary denied that the two tracks of negotiations were directly related, since the landmark agreement was reached last summer, Kerry noted “a significant pick-up” in talks to release the American prisoners. The US will also drop Interpol “red notices” – essentially arrest warrants – on a handful of Iranian fugitives.

The student, identified as Matthew Trevithick was detained 40 days after traveling to Iran in September as part of a four-month language program.

Unless there is an appropriate response to each Iranian violation of its deal with the six world powers “Iran will surmise that it can continue to develop nukes, destabilise the region and spread terror”, the prime minister’s office warned.

Iran has always rejected such allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Implementation day marks the point when the IAEA confirmed that Iran took the necessary steps to reduce 98 percent of its uranium stockpile and render the rest of its nuclear programme unable to create a weapon for the next 15 years in return for gradual sanctions relief.

Republican front-runner Donald Trump said at a campaign event that he was happy Americans were being freed, “but I will tell you it’s a disgrace that they were there for so long”.