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Nuclear watchdog chief in Iran for talks after deal

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Google Oneindia News

Tehran, Jan 18: International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano was due to hold talks in Tehran today on ensuring Iran's continued compliance with a nuclear deal the US and Iranian presidents hailed as a historic breakthrough.

The UN's atomic watchdog said Amano would meet with President Hassan Rouhani and Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, to discuss monitoring and verifying Iran's commitments under the agreement.

Iran nuclear agreement

"A lot of work has gone into getting us here, and implementation of this agreement will require a similar effort," IAEA chief Amano said in a statement after the deal. The IAEA confirmed late Saturday that Tehran had complied with its obligations under last summer's accord, leading the United States and the European Union to lift sanctions imposed over Iran's disputed nuclear programme that crippled its economy for a decade.

Rouhani, a moderate whose 2013 election victory helped launch a huge diplomatic effort toward the deal struck on July 14 in Vienna, said the implementation was a crucial moment for his country.

"We Iranians have reached out to the world... have opened a new chapter in the relations of Iran with the world," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying. In Washington, President Barack Obama said the breakthrough was vindication of his contentious policy of engagement.

"We achieved this through diplomacy without resorting to another war in the Middle East," he said in an address to the nation. But Obama also noted that "profound differences" with Tehran remained over its "destabilising activities". In a sign of those differences, Washington announced it had decided to target the Islamic republic's ballistic missile programme with new measures.

Five Iranian nationals and a network of companies based in the United Arab Emirates and China were added to an American blacklist, the US Treasury announced. The White House had threatened to impose the measures last month but withdrew them after Rouhani hit out at both their timing and intent.

Missiles were not part of the nuclear agreement. Asked before the new sanctions were announced how Iran would react to fresh measures against it, Rouhani on Sunday had said: "Any action will be met by a reaction." The new sanctions came after four Iranian-Americans, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, were released in a prisoner swap with the United States.

The exchange involved Rezaian, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, former US Marine Amir Hekmati and a fourth man, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari.

AFP

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