Nuke deal holding but more work needed — Iran negotiator

Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers is holding a year after it was agreed on but more needs to be done to ensure its full implementation, a top Iranian negotiator says Wednesday.

“The total process has been relatively satisfactory despite the difficulties that we see in the implementation,” Hamid Baeidinejad tells a press conference in Tehran for the first anniversary of the agreement.

“We believe that the deal has not been violated so far and efforts continue to resolve the remaining issues,” Baeidinejad says.

Asked if Iran had oversold the deal to its people, Baeidinejad says: “We knew exactly what was agreed upon in the deal and what was not.”

He says Tehran “had more expectations on the removal of economic, banking and financial restrictions, but despite all these deficiencies there is a feeling of hope inside our country to remove these obstacles” through more talks.

“We will not agree to anything less than the full implementation of the JCPOA,” he says, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the official name of the agreement.

The agreement caused “great optimism” in Iran on “unrelated issues,” Baeidinejad says, but those expectations are “fortunately being balanced and adjusted to reality.”

President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday also praises the “new atmosphere” created by the accord, saying it can lead to “better economic, defense, and technological activity” for Iran.

“In some fields, including banking, we still haven’t reached the expected level, although good steps have been taken in this regard and some connections have been made with big international banks,” Rouhani is quoted as saying by official news agency IRNA.

— AFP