Tehran slams US’s missile-related sanctions

Brett McGurk, a special US presidential envoy tweeted a photo of Jason Rezaian after the American journalist landed in Geneva following his release by Iran.

But Rubio, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, said the deal traded American “hostages” for Iranian “prisoners who did commit a crime”.

On January 17, a day after nuclear-related sanctions were lifted against Tehran, the United States announced fresh sanctions against Iranian companies and individuals linked to Iran’s ballistic-missile program.

Rezaian was among the four jailed Americans released by Iran over the weekend in exchange for USA prosecutors pardoning or dropping cases against 21 Iranians.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday hailed the lifting of sanctions, saying this is a great success for Iran in the political and diplomatic arena.

Second: The White House sprang the deal the day it was unlocking $100 billion in Iranian assets as per the nuclear accord. “They don’t trust us”, he said.

President Rouhani and Mr. Yukiya Amano, the IAEA General Director met on Monday in Tehran.

Iran on Monday said new USA curbs on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile programme were illegitimate, vowing to continue developing its conventional military deterrent.

Also released was Saeed Abedini 35 an Iranian-American pastor from Idaho who was setting up an orphanage in Iran in 2012 when he was detained.

Obama said Iran has agreed “to deepen our coordination” in the search for Robert Levinson, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, and who, according to his family members, was part of the discussion that led to the prisoner swap. Also, a central part of the sanctions concerned restrictions on Iran’s banking transactions with the worldwide financial institutions.

Obama said that although the Iran deal was never meant to resolve all problems between the US and Iran, it had now created a window “to try to resolve important issues”.

“Lifting the sanctions against Iran, on the one hand, it may contribute to the development of Russian-Iranian cooperation in energy, agriculture, defense industry and other areas, and thus have a positive impact on the economies of both countries”, the official said.

They include slashing by two-thirds its uranium centrifuges, reducing its stockpile of uranium – which before the deal, was enough for several bombs – and removing the core of its Arak reactor, which could have given Iran weapons-grade plutonium.