A senior western official said on Sunday that relief on EU sanctions on oil shipping insurance was included in a deal between Iran and six world powers over its disputed nuclear program.
"Insurance on oil shipments is included" in the agreement reached earlier on Sunday between the Islamic state and six world powers, including EU states Britain, Germany and France, the diplomat said.
Iran and six world powers reached a breakthrough deal early on Sunday to curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief, in what could be the first sign of an emerging rapprochement between the Islamic state and the West.
Aimed at ending a dangerous standoff, the agreement between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia was clinched after more than four days of tortuous negotiations in the Swiss city of Geneva.
Halting Iran's most sensitive nuclear work, it was designed as a package of confidence-building steps to ease decades of tensions and confrontation and banish the specter of a Middle East war over Tehran's nuclear aspirations.
The United States said the agreement halted progress on Iran's nuclear program, including construction of the Arak research reactor, which is of special concern for the West as it could yield potential bomb material.
It would neutralize Iran's stockpile of uranium refined to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, which is a close step away from the level needed for weapons, and calls for intrusive UN nuclear inspections, a senior US official said.
Iran has also committed to stop uranium enrichment above a fissile purity of 5 percent, a US fact sheet said.
Refined uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power plants - Iran's stated goal - but also provide the fissile core of an atomic bomb if refined much further.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sought to offer assurances to Israel over the nuclear deal with Iran, saying that the agreement would make the Jewish state safer over the next six months.
"Israel is threatened by what has been going on in Iran," Kerry told CNN.
"But I believe that from this day - for the next six months - Israel is in fact safer than it was yesterday because we now have a mechanism by which we are going to expand the amount of time in which they (the Iranians) can break out (toward making a nuclear bomb). We are going to have insights to their program that we didn't have before," he added.
"I believe that Israel in fact will be safer, providing we make sure that these ... sanctions don't get lifted in a way that reduces the pressure on Iran - and we don't believe they will be, there's very little sanctions relief here - that the basic architecture of the sanctions stays in place," Kerry said.
this as the U.N. nuclear watchdog said it was ready to help verify the implementation of an agreement reached on Sunday between Iran and six world to curb Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
Director General Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called the pact an important step forward.
"With the agreement of the IAEA's Board of Governors, the Agency will be ready to fulfil its role in verifying the implementation of nuclear related measures," Amano said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
IAEA inspectors regularly visit Iran's declared nuclear facilities to make sure no material there is diverted for military purposes.
For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a news conference that the deal "is only a first step," . "We need to start moving in the direction of restoring confidence, a direction in which we have managed to move against in the past."
This as, the United Arab Emirates welcomed Iran's deal with six world powers to restrain its nuclear program, state news agency WAM said.
"The cabinet hopes this would represent a step towards a permanent agreement that preserves the stability of the region and shield it from tension and the danger of nuclear proliferation," WAM said.
In turn, US President Barack Obama said that if Iran did not meet its commitments during a six-month period, the United States would turn off sanctions relief and "ratchet up the pressure".
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warmly welcomed the interim agreement and urged the governments concerned "to do everything possible to build on this encouraging start".
But Israel was unhappy. "This is a bad deal. It grants Iran exactly what it wanted - both a significant easing in sanctions and preservation of the most significant parts of its nuclear program," an official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu's office said.
REUTERS