Kerry says implementation of Iranian nuke deal likely within coming days

Pressed into crisis mode, Secretary of State John Kerry led USA diplomacy to free the sailors.

“We can all imagine how a similar situation might have played out three or four years ago”, Secretary Kerry said in a speech Wednesday at the National Defense University in Washington.

Kerry has credited Zarif with helping bridge the deep mistrust between the USA and Iranian governments after decades of estrangement and has remained in contact by phone with him in the months since the nuclear deal was negotiated.

On Tuesday, the spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy agency said IAEA inspectors had arrived in Iran to verify the final steps.

Iran said January 13 that it expects implementation over the weekend.

There was no immediate confirmation from the IAEA of Araghchi’s comments about the timing of “Implementation Day” when the deal comes into effect, but United States and European officials have said it could be just days away.

“Of course, there were tense moments and… various views over handling the case”, a second Iranian official said.

On Monday, President Hassan Rouhani said the country was about to enter “a year of economic prosperity”, with sanctions lifted, and said his government had delivered on its promises.

As Iran races to satisfy the terms of last summer’s nuclear deal and the USA prepares to suspend sanctions on Tehran as early as Friday, Kerry is talking to Zarif more than any other foreign leader.

While Iran says it will need $100 billion to rebuild its energy industry and another $29 billion for mining and steel, foreign investors are expected to return only gradually as they wait to make sure the nuclear deal holds.

Then, in late December, the United States said that Iranian vessels fired rockets close to the US aircraft carrier Harry S Truman in the Gulf.

The extension paves the way for the implementation of the nuclear agreement, which was reached in the Austrian capital, Vienna, between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries – the United States, Britain, France, China, and Russian Federation plus Germany – on July 14.

The Iran Terror Finance Transparency Act would prevent the president from lifting sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities if his administration could not prove that the entity was not a “terror financier, human rights abuser, or involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”.

Also, shortly after the U.N.’s report Friday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini are expected to issue a joint statement on the implementation of the deal, according to Araqchi.

The lone woman sailor was forced to cover her hair, and the head of Iran’s armed forces boasted that this “should be a lesson for troublemakers in the US Congress”, meaning those who want new sanctions for Tehran’s illegal ballistic-missile program.

“We did explain that this was basically a routine transit mission, that it had no way – had in no way meant to end up anywhere on Farsi Island or in Iranian territorial waters”, the official said.