Plane Carrying 3 Americans Freed by Iran Lands in Geneva

President Barack Obama praised the release of Americans held prisoner in Iran on Sunday, and the lifting of billions of dollars in worldwide sanctions on the Islamic Republic as part of a landmark nuclear accord.

Mr. Obama said Mr. Rezaian, whose detention gained world-wide attention, had been reunited with his family.

“We released seven terrorists who had helped Iran with their nuclear program, and we agreed not to prosecute another 14 terrorists for doing the same thing”, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said on Fox News Sunday.

With global sanctions lifted, more than $30 billion in assets overseas will become immediately available to Iran.

The cascade of dramatic turns in decades of hostile USA relations with Iran capped several years of Mr. Obama’s diplomatic outreach to its leaders, and the president said he hopes for additional breakthroughs in the future.

“We are relieved that this 545-day nightmare for Jason and his family is finally over, “Washington Post publisher Frederick J. Ryan Jr. said in a statement”.

A fourth prisoner, Nosratollah Khosrawi, whose detention had not been previously announced, wasn’t on the plane, the New York Times reported.

A fifth American, retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Robert Levinson, went missing in southern Iran eight years ago.

The deal isn’t the end of tension between the USA and Iran.

Clinton also responded to the just-released movie about the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, “13 Hours”, saying she hadn’t seen it but “I know people have raised questions about some of the dramatization”.

Some sanctions, not linked to the accord, will remain in place however, including European sanctions linked to human rights and U.S. sanctions linked to terrorism.

IAEA director general Yukiya Amano says Saturday this means “relations between Iran and the IAEA now enter a new phase”.

So why does the president believe the Iran deal proves “smart diplomacy” works?

The new sanctions were imposed against five Iranian nationals and a network of companies based in the United Arab Emirates and China, the U.S. Treasury Department announced in a statement. “Ultimately that did not advance America’s interests”, Obama said in comments aimed at a sceptical United States public. “We can lead this world and make it safer and more secure”. “Iran’s nuclear programme has been substantially rolled back, in return for the lifting of sanctions and the economic benefits that will bring”. While Obama emphasized that the USA continues to have deep concerns about Iran’s destabilizing actions in the Middle East and its threats to Israel, he also opened up the prospect of Tehran working more cooperatively with the rest of the world.