Roshan Khanijo writes: After months of negotiations, finally the six powers (U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) have been able to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran. This is a significant moment for ‘International Diplomacy’. It seems the six powers have been successful for now, in curbing Iran’s nuclear program, conversely Iran has also been able to push the six powers to relax and ultimately remove the draconian economic sanctions. Apparently, it seems to be a win-win situation for both the parties and especially for U.S. President Barack Obama and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani it is a significant achievement as both the presidents had to undergo tough resistance from the hardliners at home. IAEA head Yukiya Amano also hailed this as a “significant step forward”, further he stated that it would allow the agency to “make an assessment of issues relating to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme by the end of 2015”. However; its impact on West Asia needs to be seen, since most of the major countries here are circumspect of this deal. They believe that this will make Iran more aggressive and the conventional arms race will increase in West Asia. Israel had been vehemently criticizing the deal and it’s no surprise that according to Reuters ‘Israel’s deputy foreign minister accused Western powers of surrendering to Iran’. Economically also this will impact the oil trade as Iran holds the fourth largest oil reserves in the world. So this region is bound to see some major changes in the future,both politically as well as economically.
As far as the final draft is concerned it is believed that Iran has accepted the ‘snapback ‘plan whereby if Iran violates the deal than the sanctions can be re-imposed within 65 days and also that there has been no change on the issue of the UN ‘Arms Embargo’ and UN ‘Missile Sanctions’, which will continue for a substantial number of years. A major breakthrough is that the plan also deliberates on the controversial visit to the Parchin military site thus trying to address the possible military dimensions of past Iranian nuclear programme. Thus it can be stated that a beginning has been made to control nuclear arms and the success of which will depend on Iran’s commitment. In the eyes of Iran the significance of the deal can be seen in the statement of their Foreign Minister Javad Zarif when he stated that “I believe this is a historic moment. 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.”