Pop The Champagne
It's time to pop the champagne. Or, Johnny Walker, as one Twitter user suggests despite an alcohol ban in the Islamic republic.
Our correspondent in Vienna just sent the latest from the IAEA:
Netanyahu reacts:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced a nuclear agreement reached by Iran and major world powers as "a bad mistake of historic proportions."
"Iran is going to receive a sure path to nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said on July 14. “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," he added.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely called the deal to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief "a historic surrender by the West to the axis of evil headed by Iran."
More Israeli reax:
and
Former Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Liberman said that a "black flag" hung over the agreement and it would be remembered as a "black day in history." "Agreements that ignore past experience endanger the future. The agreement with Iran will be remembered in history in the same line as the Munich agreement and the agreement with North Korea....the State of Israel must always make sure to defend itself and remember "if I am not for myself, who is?"
Eight Flags
EU foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are expected to formally annouce the deal during a news conference in Vienna.
The flags of Iran, the six world powers, and the EU are already up on the podium.
Zeinab Esmaeili, journalist at Iran's Shargh Daily: "Finally, the eight flags are side by side. In the Austrian Media Center waiting for the announcement of the deal."
In another step toward ending the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program, Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), agreed on a "road map" aimed to clear up questions about Tehran's past nuclear activity.
The document, signed in Vienna on July 14 by IAEA head Yukiya Amano and Iran's nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, aims to resolve by the end of 2015 "all past and present outstanding issues that have not already been resolved by the IAEA and Iran."
Amano said that future international access to Iran's Parchin military site, which the IAEA had repeatedly sought, is part of a separate "arrangement." Salehi said Iran's "red lines" on access to Parchin had been respected, the Iranian news agency ISNA reported.
Israeli journalist Lahav Harkov told RFE/RL:
"Israelis are defiant in general, so I'm not hearing a lot of open fear, more things like, 'We know how to defend ourselves.'"
There is also a "sense of betrayal by the U.S. People on the right are angry at Obama, and on the left they blame Bibi [Netanyahu] for not being closer to Obama," Harkov says.
IRNA SAYS SANCTIONS ON IRAN'S CENTRAL BANK, NATIONAL IRANIAN OIL COMPANY, SHIPPING LINES, IRAN AIR, MANY OTHER INSTITUTIONS AND PEOPLE WILL BE LIFTED UNDER NUCLEAR DEAL