Iran and six world powers clinched a deal on Sunday to curb the Iranian nuclear programme in exchange for initial sanctions relief, signalling the start of a game-changing rapprochement that would reduce the risk of a wider Middle East war.
Aimed at easing a long festering standoff, the interim pact between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain,China and Russia won the critical endorsement of Iranian clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The agreement was announced in the middle of the night in Geneva after long and tortuous negotiations. U.S. President Barack Obama, who sought to improve ties with Iran even before his first election to the White House in 2008, said it cut off Tehran's possible routes to a nuclear bomb.But Israel, Iran's arch-enemy and a U.S. ally, denounced the agreement as a "historic mistake". Critics in the U.S. Congress were also quick to voice concern, with some raising the spectre of failure to rein in North Korea on its nuclear programmes, but they signalled that Congress would likely give the deal a chance to work.
Obama sought to reassure Israel on this point, telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call on Sunday that the United States would remain firm in its commitment to Israel, the White House said. Obama said he wanted to begin consultations with Israel immediately on reaching a comprehensive solution to Iran's nuclear problem.
The agreement, which halts Iran's most sensitive nuclear activity, its higher-grade enrichment of uranium, was tailored as a package of confidence-building steps towards reducing decades of tension and ultimately creating a more stable, secure Middle East.
Source: Reuters
