Syrian President Congratulates Iran’s Leader, President on Vienna Sum-Up Agreement

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in two separate messages on Tuesday to Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani felicitated them on the occasion of inking the long-awaited sum-up agreement by Iran and the six world powers (the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany).

In his messages, President Assad voiced his pleasure that Tehran and the Group 5+1 eventually settled their 12-year differences in the Austrian capital today.

Iran and the six world powers struck a deal in Vienna earlier today.
The hitherto elusive agreement was finally nailed down on Tuesday in the ritzy Palais Coburg Hotel in the Austrian capital of Vienna, where negotiators from Iran and the six other countries had recently been spending over two weeks to work out the remaining technical and political issues.

The agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will be presented to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which will adopt a resolution in seven to 10 days making the JCPOA an official document.

Based on the agreement, which has been concluded with due regard for Iran’s red lines, the world powers recognize Iran’s civilian nuclear program, including the country’s right to the complete nuclear cycle.

The UNSC sanctions against the Islamic Republic, including all economic and financial bans, will be lifted at once under a mutually agreed framework and through a new UN resolution.

None of the Iranian nuclear facilities will be dismantled or decomissioned.

Furthermore, nuclear research and development activities on all types of centrifuges, including advanced IR-6 and IR-8 machines, will continue.

The nuclear-related economic and financial restrictions imposed by the United States and the European Union (EU) targeting the Iranian banking, financial, oil, gas, petrochemical, trade, insurance and transport sectors will at once be annulled with the beginning of the implementation of the agreement.

The arms embargo imposed against the Islamic Republic will be annulled and replaced with certain restrictions, which themselves will be entirely removed after a period of five years.

Additionally, tens of billions of dollars in Iranian revenue frozen in foreign banks will be unblocked.

A total of 800 natural persons and legal entities, including the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), will be taken off sanctions lists.

Meantime, Iran and the IAEA signed a roadmap. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said a “roadmap” has been signed between the IAEA and Iran as the final agreement was struck over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi signed the roadmap.

Amano said the roadmap calls for his agency, with Iran’s cooperation, to make an assessment of issues relating to what is called as possible military dimensions of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by the end of 2015.

“This is a significant step forward toward clarifying outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program,” Amano said.