Obama Says Prisoner Release Marks Victory for Diplomacy

“This is a good day because once again we are seeing what’s possible through strong American diplomacy”, Mr Obama said at the White House.

Combined with closer IAEA oversight, this will make it extremely hard for Iran to make a nuclear weapon, and the limits on the size of Iran’s activities remain in place for at least a decade.

Iran announced their release on Saturday, just hours before Teheran’s historic nuclear deal with world powers was implemented, in exchange for Washington pardoning seven Iranians accused of sanctions-busting. Rouhani, a moderate whose 2013 election victory helped launch a huge diplomatic effort toward the deal struck on July 14 in Vienna, said implementation of the agreement did not harm any country. “Now our governments are talking to each other”. “Ultimately that did not advance America’s interests”, he said.

Obama described the release of six Iranian-Americans and one Iranian charged in the United States as a “reciprocal, humanitarian gesture” that was a one-time event.

“We have seen the results”, he said.

American businessman Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari was also held.

“It is hard to put into words what our family feels right now”, the statement continued. These sanctions and the new ones will continue to be enforced vigorously.

Obama talked about three major developments that diplomacy had achieved. We have now been officially told that he is on a plane leaving the country. In Germany, he shook hands with the State Department’s Brett McGurk who led negotiations for the prisoners’ release.

“All oppressive sanctions imposed against Iran will be annulled today”, Zarif said on Iranian state TV. In settling the claim, which had been tied up at the Hague Tribunal since 1981, the U.S.is returning the money in the fund along with “a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest”, the statement said. Given what we know about his negotiating skills, I could probably walk off the lot with a runner after he paid me to take it off his hands. “There was no benefit to the United States in dragging this out”, he said. There was no point in dragging out that dispute, he said.

The deal has been welcomed by many governments, the United Nations and European Union – but disparaged by some US Republicans and Israel, which says it allows Iran to continue to “spread terror”.

A US official said the Obama administration wanted to test whether there could be additional cooperation or constructive dialog between the United States and Iran.