An Iranian diplomat confirmed Tuesday morning that a landmark Iran nuclear agreement was reached after clearing final obstacles, and sources said it would be announced officially sometime in the late morning.
“All the hard work has paid off and we sealed a deal. God bless our people,” the diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Another Iranian official confirmed the agreement.
A Western diplomat confirmed that an agreement had been reached just before the formal announcement was expected.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials reacted negatively with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leading the pack. “Iran is going to receive a sure path to nuclear weapons,” said Netanyahu. “Many of the restrictions that were supposed to prevent it from getting there will be lifted.
“Iran will get a jackpot, a cash bonanza of hundreds of billions of dollars, which will enable it to continue to pursue its aggression and terror in the region and in the world. This is a bad mistake of historic proportions.”
Israel Beytenu Chairman and former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman also reacted to the confirmation of a deal, calling it a danger for the future. “History will remember the Iran dael just like the Munich Agreement and the agreement with North Korea,” said Lieberman.
The Iranian state news agency has reported that under the current deal, all Iranian nuclear facilities will remain up and running and research on key centrifuges will continue.
The news agency continued to say that bans on Iran purchasing certain dual- use machinery and technology will also end. EU and US economic sanctions are also set to be lifted with the implementation of the agreement according to report.
According to diplomatic sources, the deal includes a compromise between Washington and Tehran that would allow UN inspectors to press for visits to Iranian military sites as part of their monitoring duties.
But access at will to any site would not necessarily be granted and even if so, could be delayed, a condition that critics of the deal are sure to seize on as possibly giving Tehran time to cover any sign of non-compliance with its commitments.
Under the deal, the source said Tehran would have the right to challenge the UN request and an arbitration board composed of Iran and the six world powers that negotiated with it would have to decide on the issue.
Still, such an arrangement would be a notable departure from assertions by top Iranian officials that their country would never allow the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency into such sites. Iran has argued that such visits by the IAEA would be a cover for spying on its military secrets.
Iranian opposition to the arms embargo also eased during negotiations, and the embargo is set to continue for five years. The deal also stipulates that sanctions would be reimposed on Iran within 65 days in case it broke the deal.
In addition to the five year UN weapons embargo, missile sanctions will stay in place for eight years.
As a midnight Monday target for a deal approached in Vienna, diplomats said the nuts and bolts of the written nuclear accord had been settled days ago.
An official announcement of the Iran nuclear deal was made early Tuesday afternoon in Vienna, by negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers including the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Russia.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini sat next to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif with other officials during the announcement.
Zarif called the nuclear deal a “win-win” solution but not perfect, saying it will open “new horizons.”
“I believe this is an historic moment,” said Zarif. “We are reaching an agreement that is not perfect for anybody but is what we could accomplish. Today could have been the end of hope, but now we are starting a new chapter of hope.”
Mogherini for her part said the deal will “open the way to a new chapter in international relations,” and show diplomacy can overcome tensions.
“This is a sign of hope for the entire world,” she claimed of the deal with the leading state sponsor of terror.
Iranian and Western diplomats revealed earlier on Tuesday morning that the deal had been signed.
Diplomats indicated that the deal would stipulate that the UN arms embargo on Iran, the leading state sponsor of terror, would remain for five years, after which it presumably would be removed.
On Monday the White House dodged questions about lifting the arms embargo. The concession on conventional weapons would appear unrelated to the nuclear focus of the deal; Iran’s ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) program needed to deliver nuclear strikes has for its part been left out of the talks.
The diplomat also said UN missile sanctions on Iran will stay in pace for eight years, and that Iran accepted a “snapback” plan whereby sanctions will be put back in place if it is found to be violating the agreement. Critics have warned the sanctions have not blocked Iran’s nuclear program.
Separately a “road map” deal was signed with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) promising to clarify the military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program by the end of 2015, as IAEA head Yukiya Amano announced in Vienna.
Iran has made a number of last-minute demands and sources differ on key points such as the lifting of the US arms embargo on the Islamic Republic and whether international inspectors will have access to all nuclear sites.
Major disagreements in the talks have included Iran’s refusal to allow inspections on sensitive nuclear sites, its refusal to disclose the military aspects of its nuclear program, its demand for the immediate removal of all sanctions, and a demand to end the UN arms embargo on the Islamic regime.