Iran and a group of six nations led by the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany – began talking on nuclear issues in 2006. A historic agreement was signed on Tuesday limiting Tehran’s nuclear ability in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions. Ban on Iran to buy certain dual-use machinery and technology will end, EU and US economic sanctions on Iran will be lifted, billions of US dollars of Iran’s frozen assets will be released and sanctions on Iran’s central bank, the National Iranian Oil Company, shipping lines, Iran Air, many other institutions and people will be lifted.
World leaders have hailed the Iran nuclear deal, with US President Barack Obama envisioning a new direction and Russian President Vladimir Putin voicing a global huge sigh of relief. The accord seeks to end nearly 12 years of nuclear stand-off between Iran and the western powers led by the US. The accord will keep Iran from producing enough material for a nuclear weapon for at least 10 years and impose new provisions for inspections of Iranian facilities, including military sites. The deal reduces the number of Iranian centrifuges by two-thirds. It places bans on uranium enrichment at 3.67 percent and limits the stockpile to 300 kg, all for 15 years. It also limits research and development to the Natanz facility. The U.S. estimates that the new measures take Iran from being able to assemble its first bomb within 2-3 months, to at least one year from now.
The accord was announced on Tuesday by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in a joint statement in the Austrian capital Vienna. Addressing also the Iranian nation, Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran, said: “We didn’t ask for charity. We asked for fair, just and win-win negotiations.”
The Vienna talks represented a huge investment of time and effort for both men, Mr. Javad Zarif and Mr. John Kerry, but particularly for the US Secretary who usually dart from place to place and handle a multitude of problems simultaneously. The fact that Mr. Kerry chose to spend 18 days in Austria, concentrating upon one issue, was almost unprecedented. The Vienna talks amounted to the longest continuous negotiation ever conducted by any US secretary of state for 41 years. US President Barack Obama had long sought to put an end to this nuclear issue and he considers the agreement as the biggest diplomatic achievement of his presidency.
