JCPOA Implementation Day in Offing, Says Zarif

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad JavadZarifsays the implementation of a nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is in the offing.

“We’re getting to Implementation Day,” Zarif said on his Twitter page on Saturday.

“Nothing serious. Diplomacy requires patience, but we all know that it sure beats the alternatives,” he added.

Amid expectations of an announcement by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the landmark nuclear agreement can enter into force, Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry met in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Saturday to iron out the final details.

Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — plus Germany finalized the text of the JCPOA in Vienna, on July 14, 2015.

Under the JCPOA, limits are put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The sanctions imposed against Iran by the United Nations, United States and European Union will be lifted when the IAEA declares Tehran’s compliance with the JCPOA.

Upon his arrival in Vienna earlier on Saturday, Zarif had said that “all oppressive sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic will be annulled today.”

Republicans seek to undermine Iran nuclear agreement

The US Republican Party has long been trying to undermine the Iran nuclear agreement in lockstep with Israeli policies, says an American journalist.

In a phone interview with Press TV, Keith Preston, director of AttacktheSystem.com, said what Republicans are trying to do is to “obstruct the deal that the [US President Barack] Obama administration worked out with Iran concerning the nuclear program.”

He made the remarks shortly after Republican lawmakers said they had given up their push to take legal action against Obama over the nuclear agreement reached between Iran and the P5+1– the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany — on July 14, 2015, in Vienna, Austria.

“What is going on here is that the Republicans are engaging in an act of political grandstanding what is simply trying to undermine the Iran deal itself and I think they are also trying to undermine the Obama administration because this is an election year,” said Preston.

“The Republicans are trying to strengthen their positions as being hawks on national security questions and they are trying to portrait the Obama administration as being weak on national security, terrorism, national defense and of course we have to consider that the Republican Party has always been very opposed to the Iran deal and the Republican Party is steadfastly anti-Iran,” he added.

Preston further noted that another reason for GOP’s anti-Iran steps is that the party “is very steadfastly aligned with …Israeli politics.”

“The Republican Party essentially takes the same line on Middle East politics as the [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu regime and Israel,” said the journalist. “They are almost indistinguishable from one another in that sense.”

According to a report that was released earlier this month, Netanyahu bribed Republican senator Tom Cotton to sabotage the Iran nuclear agreement.

Cotton reportedly received $960,250 from the Emergency Committee for Israel, a right-wing political advocacy organization based in the United States, for his senatorial campaign.

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