Iran nuclear deal takes big step forward

Iran and six world powers took a significant and hard-won step toward nuclear rapprochement , announcing a deal to implement a landmark agreement that caps Iran’s disputed nuclear program in return for a modest easing of crippling economic sanctions, reported the Washington Post newspaper . The announcement follows up on the breakthrough agreement reached in Geneva late last year after a decade of rising animosity and suspicion between Iran and much of the rest of the world over the country’s advanced nuclear development, said the paper in its website. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said Sunday that the next step in the process is verification of the agreement by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. "The foundations for a coherent, robust and smooth implementation of the joint plan of action over the six-month period have been laid," said Ashton, who led the negotiations for the bloc comprising the five per "Beginning Jan. 20th, the administration will give the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism billions of dollars while allowing the mullahs to keep their illicit nuclear infrastructure in place," Kirk said in a statement. "I am worried the administration’s policies will either lead to Iranian nuclear weapons or Israeli air strikes." Israel, which considers Iran a mortal enemy, has warned that it will blow up Iranian nuclear development sites if diplomacy fails to blunt the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran on the nearby Jewish state. manent members of the U.N. Security Council the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany. The six-member bloc had negotiated on and off with Iran for years, but there had been no visible sign of progress until the election last year of reform-minded Hassan Rouhani as the country’s president. The six-month agreement halts the most worrisome nuclear work and rolls back some of Iran’s sophisticated advances, but it stops far short of ensuring that the country can never develop a weapon if it chooses to do so. The weeks of bargaining to put the November agreement in force were more difficult than anticipated, with one brief walkout by Iranian envoys and rancor among the bloc of nations that negotiated the deal. Russia and China, long Iran’s protectors at the United Nations, pushed the United States to accept technical concessions that further make clear that Iran will retain the ability to enrich uranium, a key Iranian demand, once a final set of restrictions on its program is approved.