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Yeah, it's time to refer this to a UN committee:Save the date: Iran has pledged to start eliminating some of its uranium stockpile on January 20, the White House said Sunday. That gives an official start time for the six-month interim deal with Iran, which was first announced in November. "As of that day, for the first time in almost a decade, Iran's nuclear program will not be able to advance, and parts of it will be rolled back, while we start negotiating a comprehensive agreement to address the international community's concerns about Iran's program," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement Sunday. Iranian officials also confirmed the start date for the deal, state media reported.
As part of the agreement, Iran has agreed to start eliminating its stockpile of higher levels of enriched uranium, to dismantle some infrastructure that makes higher-level uranium enrichment possible, and not to start up additional centrifuges. Representatives from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency will also monitor Iran's nuclear facilities and make sure the country is taking the required steps as part of the deal. In exchange, some sanctions against Iran will be eased as part of what the White House calls "modest relief." U.S. officials estimate the overall sanctions relief provided to Iran as part of the deal will total around $7 billion -- $4.2 billion of which consists of restricted Iranian assets that will be freed up gradually. "The $4.2 billion in restricted Iranian assets that Iran will gain access to as part of the agreement will be released in regular installments throughout the six months," Kerry said. "The final installment will not be available to Iran until the very last day."
But there's a bipartisan push in Congress to tighten, rather than ease, sanctions on Iran. U.S. President Barack Obama made it clear Sunday that he would push back. "Imposing additional sanctions now will only risk derailing our efforts to resolve this issue peacefully, and I will veto any legislation enacting new sanctions during the negotiation," Obama said in a written statement. Senior Obama administration officials echoed that sentiment Sunday, but also said if Iran doesn't make good on its promises, the United States could decide to step up sanctions. Iranian lawmakers have threatened to boost uranium enrichment levels if the United States imposes more sanctions against the country. One of Iran's deputy foreign minister, Majid Ravanchi, told CNN Sunday that the enactment of additional sanctions from the U.S. Senate would "ruin the entire agreement." "We hope we will not face that," he said.
Word of the deal's start date drew mixed reactions from Capitol Hill Sunday. "I'm concerned that this agreement takes us down that path where sanctions pressure is relieved, but Iran maintains its ability to produce a nuclear weapon," said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-California. "Given these stakes, it's regrettable that the President does not want to work with Congress to bolster his negotiating hand with additional sanctions, which would go into effect should Iran fail to meet its commitments." Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, called the interim agreement a "meaningful step forward" and said new sanctions would be counterproductive. "We will know soon enough if Iran is committed to a diplomatic resolution of its nuclear program. If it is not, new sanctions will move with lightning speed out of the Congress and with my full support." he said. "Many obstacles remain, and I continue to be skeptical of Tehran's willingness to abandon pursuit of nuclear weapons technology, but I am also fully convinced that we must try the diplomatic path."
More White House: Iran to start scaling back nuclear program January 20 - CNN.com
“At last, the Group 5+1 accepted yesterday that Iran’s operating new generation of centrifuges for research does not run counter to the Geneva agreement,” he added. On Sunday, Iran and the six world powers agreed to start implementing the Geneva interim nuclear deal on January 20 and fulfill their undertakings simultaneously and on a single day. Senior negotiator and Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi told the media on Sunday evening that "the (Geneva) deal will be put into effect on January 20”. 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 Group 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.
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The United States and European Union both suspended some trade and other restrictions against the OPEC oil producer after the United Nations' nuclear watchdog confirmed that Iran had fulfilled its side of an agreement made on November 24. The announcements, which coincided with a diplomatic row over Iran's role at peace talks on Syria [ID:nL5N0KU1X2], will allow six months of negotiation on a definitive accord that the West hopes can end fears of Tehran developing nuclear weapons and Iran wants to end sanctions that are crippling its economy.
Iranian officials hailed a warming of ties that will also see their new president make a pitch to international business leaders at Davos later this week: "The iceberg of sanctions against Iran is melting," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Iranian state television. Iran should be able to recover $4.2 billion in oil revenues frozen in foreign accounts over the six months of the interim deal, as well as resume trade in petrochemicals and gold and other precious metals. But EU and U.S. officials stressed that other sanctions will still be enforced during the six months of talks and that reaching a final accord will be difficult.
Israel, which has called the interim pact a "historic mistake" and has repeatedly warned it might attack Iran to prevent it developing nuclear arms, said any final deal must end any prospect of Tehran building an atomic bomb - something Iran insists it has never had any intention of doing. The interim accord was the culmination of years of on-off diplomacy between Iran and six powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. It marks the first time in a decade that Tehran has limited nuclear operations that it says are aimed mainly at generating electricity and the first time the West has eased its economic pressure on Iran.
TALKS AHEAD
Iran is the main foreign backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its presence has been one of the most contentious issues looming over the first talks to be attended by both Assad's government and opponents. The talks are set to start on Wednesday in Switzerland. Expectations of a breakthrough towards ending the almost three-year-old conflict were already low but diplomats said the entire conference was now in jeopardy. "Is Geneva going to happen? That is the question we can't answer at the moment," a Western diplomat said.
After the clamorous response to his invitation, Ban was "urgently considering his options" his spokesman said. Adding to dark clouds, Assad said he might seek re-election this year, effectively dismissing any talk of negotiating an end to his rule, his enemies' main demand. The West and the Syrian opposition have long said Iran must be barred from the conference unless it first accepts an accord reached in Geneva in 2012 calling for a transitional government for Syria, which they see as a step towards unseating Assad.
Ban said he had issued the invitation after Iran's foreign minister assured him Tehran accepted the earlier accord. But Iran said it had done no such thing. That put Western countries on a collision course with the United Nations: "If Iran does not fully and publicly accept the Geneva communiqué, the invitation must be rescinded," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.
Syria's main political opposition in exile - the National Coalition, which agreed to attend the conference known as Geneva 2 only two days ago - said it would announce it was withdrawing from the talks unless Ban revoked his invitation by 1900 GMT. When that deadline passed, they said they expected Ban to make an announcement in a few hours' time and would base their decision on that. There was no immediate comment from the United Nations.
DISPUTE OVER 2012 ACCORD
With the invitation withdrawn, the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group said it would attend the long-awaited peace talks in Switzerland. The surprise invitation, extended Sunday by the U.N. secretary-general, set off a flurry of diplomatic activity to salvage the talks. The U.S. said the offer should be rescinded and the opposition threatened to skip the event entirely.
The conference is set to begin Wednesday in the Swiss luxury resort city of Montreux, with high-ranking delegations from the United States, Russia and close to 40 other countries attending. Face-to-face negotiations between the Syrian government and its opponents the first of the uprising are to start Friday in Geneva. The uproar over Iran's invitation threatened to scuttle the entire event.
The Syrian National Coalition, which had voted late Saturday to attend after months of rancorous debate, issued an ultimatum, saying that Iran must commit publicly within hours to withdraw its "troops and militias" from Syria and abide by a 2012 roadmap to establish a transitional government. Otherwise, the group said, the U.N. should withdraw its invitation for Tehran to take part. The confusion surrounding the Iranian invitation underscored the tenuous nature of diplomatic effort to end the bloody conflict, which has morphed from peaceful protests to a vicious civil war with outside powers backing rebels who are fighting not only the government but rival insurgents as well.
It is not clear what exactly motivated Ban to issue the invitation, but it came hours after he said he had received assurances from Tehran that it accepted the premise of the talks to establish a transitional government with full executive powers in Syria, which has been ruled by President Bashar Assad's family since 1970. Iran is Assad's strongest regional ally and has supplied his government with advisers, money and materiel since the Syrian uprising began in 2011. The Islamic Republic's allies, most notably the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, have also gone to Syria to help bolster Assad's forces.
More UN withdraws invite to Iran to attend Syria talks
