"The deal will be put into effect on January 20," senior negotiator and Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi said told the media this evening.
Araqchi said his negotiations with EU foreign policy deputy chief Helga Schmidt continued until a few hours ago. "Finally we finalized the agreement between us and the 5+1 on how to implement the first step of the Joint Plan of Action, and the two sides came to a single interpretation on how to put the agreement into effect."
He said a major part of the points pertaining to the implementation of the deal had been resolved during the experts meetings during the last several weeks, adding that he and Schmidt also worked out some solutions about the remaining points of difference.
Araqchi said the solutions were to be approved by the capitals of all the seven countries. "And today we were informed that the 6 states (party to the talks with Iran) have voiced their consent to these solutions and accepted them. In Iran the relevant bodies also studied, assessed and agreed with these solutions and this agreement was declared during the contact between Ms. Schmidt and me," he added.
Araqchi said according to the agreement, both Iran and the 6 world powers will fulfill their undertakings "on a single day" that would be January 20. "All the sanctions that are due to be suspended and have been mentioned in the (Geneva) agreement will be waived on January 20," he added.
"Also the moves that we have taken up to do with regard to the suspension of 20-percent enrichment and those measures that we have accepted not to do or halt their progress will stop on January 20," Araqchi continued.
Yet, he said there will remain two undertakings which would not be put completely into force on January 20, and explained that conversion of half of Iran's 20-percent-enriched uranium stockpile would be done in 6 stages, each of which might take around one month, and on the opposite side, the 5+1 will release USD4.2 billion of Iran's frozen assets in 8 stages with time intervals of less than a month.
Araqchi said once this first step starts on January 20, the seven countries would convene in less than a month to start working on the final step as mentioned in the Geneva interim deal towards a comprehensive settlement of the nuclear standoff.
In Washington, US President Barack Obama welcomed the news, saying "With today's agreement we have made concrete progress. I welcome this important step forward."
In a statement released by the White House, President Obama lashed out at the Senate for preparing a bill for new sanctions against Iran, and warned that "I will veto any legislation enacting new sanctions during the negotiation" with Iran.
"Imposing additional sanctions now will only risk derailing our efforts to resolve this issue peacefully," he explained.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also voiced her pleasure in a statement, and said, "The E3/EU+3 and Iran have now reached a common understanding on the implementation modalities for a first step of 6 months of initial measures as set out in the Geneva Joint Plan of Action of 24 November 2013."
"Thanks to this agreement on the implementation modalities, the foundations for a coherent, robust and smooth implementation of the Joint Plan of Action over the 6 months period have been laid," Ashton said.
"The E3/EU+3 and Iran will now start the implementation of the first step on 20 January 2014," she added.
On November 24, Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) sealed a six-month Joint Plan of Action to lay the groundwork for the full resolution of the West’s decade-old dispute with Iran over its nuclear energy program.
In exchange for Tehran’s confidence-building bid to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities, the Sextet of world powers agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against Tehran and continue talks with the country to settle all problems between the two sides.
