By JOHN-THOR
In this photo released by the Iranian Students News Agency, ISNA, Iranians hold posters of President Hassan Rouhani as they welcome Iranian nuclear negotiators upon their arrival from Geneva at the Mehrabad airport in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2013. Hundreds of cheering supporters greeted Iran’s nuclear negotiators as they arrived back to Tehran late Sunday night. Tehran agreed Sunday to a six-month pause of its nuclear program while diplomats continue talks. International observers are set to monitor Iran’s nuclear sites as the West eases about $7 billion of the economic sanctions crippling the Islamic Republic. (AP Photo/ISNA,Hemmat Khahi)
Hassan Rouhani
In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani speaks during a news briefing after Iran and world powers agree in Geneva to a deal over Iran’s nuclear program, at the Presidency compound in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2013. Iran struck a deal with the U.S. and five other world powers, agreeing to a temporary freeze of its nuclear program in the most significant agreement between Washington and Tehran in more than three decades. The deal commits Iran to curb its nuclear activities for six months in exchange for limited sanctions relief. (AP Photo/Presidency Office, Mohammad Berno)
APTOPIX Mideast Iran Nuclear
In this picture released by Tasnim News Agency on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013, members of Iran’s paramilitary Basij force, which is controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, attend a maneuver of preparation for possible attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, by the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, southern Iran. (AP Photo/Tasnim, Hosein Heydarpour)
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BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union sanctions against Iran could be eased as soon as December, officials said Monday, after a potentially history-shaping deal that gives Tehran six months to increase access to its nuclear sites in exchange for keeping the core components of its uranium program.
The deal, announced Sunday, envisions lifting some of the sanctions that have been crippling the country’s economy. The sanctions were in response to fears that Tehran is using its nuclear program to build atomic arms. Iran denies it wants such weapons.
“A Europe-wide decision is necessary” to ease EU sanctions, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Europe 1 radio. “That’s expected in several weeks, for a partial lifting that is targeted, reversible.”
“It could be in December, it could be in January, it depends on how long the legislative process takes,” EU foreign affairs spokesman Michael Mann told reporters in Brussels.
The United States and the EU have separate sanctions on Iran. Easing European restrictions would affect numerous areas including trade in petrochemicals, gold and other precious metals, financial transfers to purchase food and medicine, and the ability of third countries to use EU-based firms to insure shipments of Iranian oil again.
Mann said work on amending the EU regulations was already beginning, but cautioned that changes depend on the Iranian government living up to its end of the deal.
“It’s important that both sides of the bargain are implementing this agreement, so we would coordinate timing-wise also with the Iranian side,” the EU spokesman said.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague put the total estimated value of sanctions relief at $7 billion over a 6-month period, but stressed it would not all come at once.
“They do not receive 7 billion on the first day and then decide if they want to implement their side of the agreement,” Hague said, calling the amount of sanctions relief “a very small proportion” of the total frozen assets and value of sanctions applied to Iran.
“The way we’re doing sanctions relief leaves Iran with a huge incentive” to go for a comprehensive agreement since Tehran wants complete sanctions relief, Hague said.
The deal reached Sunday will allow Iran to keep the central elements of its uranium program, while stopping its enrichment at a level lower than what is needed for nuclear arms. In addition to a six-month window for Iran to allow more U.N. access to nuclear sites, sanctions will be eased — notably in the oil, automotive and aviation industries — though not ended.
The agreement is a first step — one that Israel has condemned as a “historic mistake” that effectively accepts Iran as a threshold nuclear weapons state. Israel has found common cause with Saudi Arabia, which shares concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran and Tehran’s growing regional influence.
On his return to Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif told state television that the country was prepared for quick follow-up negotiations to keep the deal on track.
“We are ready to begin the final stage of nuclear agreement from tomorrow,” said Zarif, who was greeted by hundreds of cheering students.
Many Iranians appeared upbeat about the deal and the possibility of an eventual end to sanctions, such as blocks on access to international banking networks that have crippled businesses and made once-routine transactions — such as paying tuition for a student abroad — a complicated process.
But hardline groups remained highly wary of any close cooperation with Washington.
An editorial in the conservative daily Kayhan described the U.S. as a deceitful power that could renege on its pledges even if Iran sticks with its part of the deal.
“The U.S. was not trustworthy. The Geneva deal lasted only one hour,” it said in its front-page headline, referring to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s comments that there was no recognition of Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium.
Iran insists that trying to block enrichment was a dead end. For Iran’s leaders, self-sufficiency over the full scope of its nuclear efforts — from uranium mines to the centrifuges used in enrichment — is a source of national pride and a pillar of its self-proclaimed status as a technological beacon for the Islamic world.
In the end, Iran agreed to cap its enrichment level at 5 percent, far below the 90 percent threshold needed for a warhead. Iran also pledged to “neutralize” its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium — the highest level acknowledged by Tehran — by either diluting its strength or converting it to fuel for research reactors, which produced isotopes for medical treatments and other civilian uses.
In return, Iran got the rollback in some sanctions — a total package the White House also estimated will re-inject $7 billion into the Iranian economy — but the main pressures remain on Iran’s oil exports and its blacklist from international banking networks during the first steps of the pact.DAHLBURG and BRIAN MURPHY
