Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said nuclear-related sanctions on his country would be lifted Saturday, telling reporters in Vienna it “was a good day for the world.”
“It’s a good day for the people of Iran… and also a good day for the region. The sanctions will be lifted today,” he said after arriving in Austria’s capital on Saturday morning, according to the ISNA news agency.
His comments came after diplomatic sources said the UN nuclear watchdog would likely say Iran had complied with last July’s landmark agreement with world powers on Tehran’s atomic program.
Zarif, who led Iran in nuclear talks with the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany, said the deal had removed from the Middle East “the shadow of a baseless confrontation.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency report will allow US Secretary of State John Kerry, Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, to announce in Vienna that the deal can enter into force, the diplomatic sources said.
The economic sanctions on Iran would most probably be lifted Saturday, a source in Jerusalem told Army Radio, and he warned that the first investment by the Islamic Republic would be military and not civilian.
The unnamed source said that Iran’s first priority would be to spend its newly freed-up funds on military acquisitions, and not on civilian investments, Army Radio reported. Furthermore, the source said, the implementation of the agreement would have a direct impact on the region, as terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas — both recipients of Iranian largesse — found themselves in possession of new and modern weaponry.
“The world powers are mistaken if they see Iran as a solution to regional stability, and not the source of the problem,” another unnamed source said, according to the radio.
“It’s a good day for the people of Iran… and also a good day for the region. The sanctions will be lifted today,” Zarif said after arriving in Austria’s capital on Saturday morning, according to the ISNA news agency.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have been publicly and vehemently critical of the agreement, saying that it paves the way to an Iranian bomb, entrenches the regime in power, and frees up vast amounts of money that Iran will utilize to foster terrorism worldwide and instability in the region.
Is Washington Hiding the Truth Behind US Navy Incident in Iran?
"What we know for certain is that the storyline of 'mechanical failure' and 'poor US boat in distress' that was originally propagated … was complete fiction," Greenwald observed. But the new version does not necessarily reflect what really happened.
First, the US sailors, according to the journalist, were most likely familiar with the route, since they often traveled between Bahrain and Kuwait. After all, the US Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain. Second, not a single sailor on the vessels reported the error to their superiors, when they understood that the boats had entered Iran's waters.
"This unauthorized trespass into Iranian territorial waters was continuously depicted as an act of Iranian aggression (contrast that with how the US government suggested it would be in Turkey's rights not only to intercept but to shoot down any Russian jet that even briefly traverses its airspace)," the journalist pointed out.
One could only imagine front page headlines if the US and Iran switched places and those were Iranian boats that had inadvertently drifted into US territorial waters.
Is Washington Hiding the Truth Behind US Navy Incident in Iran?
Two US boats "inadvertently drifted" into Iran's territorial waters due to a mechanical failure, US officials said shortly after the Tuesday incident took place. Two days later (and after Tehran released all ten US sailors) Washington had completely changed its story, leaving more questions than answers, journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out.
On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that the sailors "obviously had misnavigated." At the same time, mechanical failure was ruled out as a reason for the incident. This means that the boats were not in distress when they sailed near Farsi Island, which houses a naval base of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps. This also means that Iran was within its right when it detained the soldiers.
First, the US sailors, according to the journalist, were most likely familiar with the route, since they often traveled between Bahrain and Kuwait. After all, the US Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain. Second, not a single sailor on the vessels reported the error to their superiors, when they understood that the boats had entered Iran's waters.
"Beyond that, 'misnavigating' within a few miles of an Iranian Guard Corps naval base is a striking coincidence," Greenwald noted.
Yet, many US media accounts of what transpired presented the incident as a hostile act committed by Iran.
"This unauthorized trespass into Iranian territorial waters was continuously depicted as an act of Iranian aggression (contrast that with how the US government suggested it would be in Turkey's rights not only to intercept but to shoot down any Russian jet that even briefly traverses its airspace)," the journalist pointed out.
One could only imagine front page headlines if the US and Iran switched places and those were Iranian boats that had inadvertently drifted into US territorial waters.
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