March 31, 2015
Concerns with the deal designed to curb with the Islamic Republic's nuclear program have centered around the long-term dangers of the agreement. Aside from technical and oversight issues, the key focus has been on whether to suspend or terminate the crippling sanctions that brought the Islamic Republic to the negotiating table. But what about the immediate impact of lifting sanctions on Tehran? Rarely mentioned is the P5+1 group's plan to unfreeze more than $150 billion of Iran's restricted foreign assets as a first step toward sanctions relief. The intended move was revealed a few weeks ago by a European source close to P5+1 diplomats involved in the negotiations. BBC Farsi published a telling statement by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on March 28: "If there is an agreement, it is possible that the president would use his powers to temporarily lift some of the sanctions so that if Iran fails in the verification process,we could reimpose the sanctions swiftly." Officials sounded a like note to the Associated Press on March 19: "A draft nuclear accord now being negotiated between the United States and Iran would force Iran to cut hardware it would use to make an atomic bomb by about 40 percent for at least a decade, while offering the Iranians immediate relief from sanctions that have crippled the economy."
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