VIENNA — The U.N. nuclear agency certified Saturday that Iran has met all of its commitments under last summer’s landmark nuclear deal, crowning years of U.S.-led efforts to crimp Iran’s ability to make atomic weapons. For Iran, the move lifts Western economic sanctions that have been in place for years, unlocking access to $100 billion in frozen assets and unleashing new opportunities for its battered economy.
VIENNA — The U.N. nuclear agency certified Saturday that Iran has met all of its commitments under last summer’s landmark nuclear deal, crowning years of U.S.-led efforts to crimp Iran’s ability to make atomic weapons. For Iran, the move lifts Western economic sanctions that have been in place for years, unlocking access to $100 billion in frozen assets and unleashing new opportunities for its battered economy.
“The multinational economic and financial sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program are lifted,” Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said in a joint statement also read in Farsi by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif.
President Barack Obama signed executive orders lifting economic sanctions on Iran and Mogherini said the EU had lifted its nuclear-related sanctions as well.
“This historic deal is both strong and fair, and it meets the requirements of all,” Mogherini declared, saying it serves to “improve regional and international peace, security and stability.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who led the last years of negotiations with Zarif that culminated in the July 14 deal, confirmed that the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy could verify that “Iran has fully implemented its required commitments.”
“Relations between Iran and the IAEA now enter a new phase,” said IAEA director general Yukiya Amano. “It is an important day for the international community.”
Progress also came Saturday on another area of Iran-U.S. tensions: U.S. and Iranian officials announced that Iran was releasing four detained Iranian-Americans in exchange for seven Iranians held or charged in the United States.
U.S. officials said the four — Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, pastor Saeed Abedini and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari — were to be flown from Iran to Switzerland on a Swiss plane and then brought to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, for medical treatment.
In return, the U.S. will either pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians — six of them dual citizens — accused or convicted of violating U.S. sanctions. The U.S. will also drop Interpol “red notices” — essentially arrest warrants — on a handful of Iranian fugitives it has sought.
Rezaian is a dual Iran-U.S. citizen convicted of espionage by Iran in a closed-door trial in 2015.