Iran Completes Steps to Implement Nuclear Accord
Process set to lead within hours to relief from years of tight international sanctions
The head of the United Nations atomic agency said Saturday evening he had issued a report verifying that Iran had completed all the steps needed to implement last July’s nuclear deal, triggering a process that will lead within hours to relief from years of tight international sanctions on Tehran.
“We have come a long way since the IAEA first started considering the Iran nuclear issue in 2003. A lot of work has gone into getting us here, and implementation of this agreement will require a similar effort,” said Yukiya Amano, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in a statement. “For our part, we are ready to get on with the job.”
The IAEA report was necessary to confirm that Iran had shut down thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges that can manufacture nuclear fuel, removed the reactor core at its Arak heavy-water facility near Tehran and sent out of the country its stockpile of nuclear fuel.
Those steps, according to Western experts, mean that it would take Iran at least one year to make enough nuclear fuel for an atomic bomb. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is purely peaceful.
Under the U.S.-led agreement, most nuclear-related sanctions imposed by the U.S., European Union and U.N. will be removed, reopening international markets to hundreds of thousands of barrels of Iranian oil and returning billions of dollars in frozen oil money to Iran.
The implementation of the deal came as Iran said it freed four Iranian-American prisoners in a swap with the U.S., including The Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian. U.S. officials later confirmed the swap. In exchange, the Obama administration agreed to release seven Iranian nationals who were either jailed in the U.S. or facing charges.