Japan to lift sanctions on Iran after nuke deal

Iran’s Foreign Minister spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said Monday that the country’s “missile program has never been designated to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons” and that the sanctions have “no legal or moral legitimacy”, reported BBC.

Sources described to Reuters before the prisoner deal was announced how Secretary of State John Kerry and other officials scrambled to ensure that the possibility of new sanctions over Iran’s ballistic missile program did not derail the effort.

The Senator from New Jersey added that “if they [Iran] have the patience to do so, they will get to where they want to be. The Iranian missile program is a legitimate defense program”, Zarif told the Associated Press Wednesday.

Japan’s sanctions against Iran included suspensions on new investment in the Islamic republic’s oil and gas sector.

But a USA decision on Sunday to reimpose some sanctions, this time over Iran’s missile programme dampened the proceedings, with Zarif calling the move “bizarre”. “Its addiction to pressure, addiction to coercion, addiction to sanctions”.

What does all this mean for Iranians anxious to restore connections between the USA and Iran?

Zarif countered that Iran spends far less than its neighbors on its military.

“The United States was not able to stop Iran’s nuclear program through sanctions”, he said.

“We have deals that are being worked out with Airbus all sorts of companies from nuclear technology companies, to irrigation, green energy… a whole range of them”, he said, without elaborating.

On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz promised he would rip up the Iran nuclear deal on his first day in office.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog responsible for the inspections, has greater access to Iranian nuclear facilities than it did before the agreement.