Dubbing it a proud moment for Iranians, President says Tehran will no longer be regarded as an international threat.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, who led the negotiations, is now back in Tehran [AP]

The nuclear deal with world powers is a political victory for Iran, President Hassan Rouhani has said, adding that the agreement meant Tehran would no longer be regarded as an international threat.

Rouhani’s comment came on Wednesday, a day after Iran and six world powers reached the deal, capping more than a decade of negotiations with a landmark agreement.

“No one can say Iran surrendered,” Rouhani said. “The deal is a legal, technical and political victory for Iran. It’s an achievement that Iran won’t be called a world threat any more.”

Under the deal, sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and the United Nations will be lifted in return for Iran agreeing long-term curbs on a nuclear programme that the West has suspected was aimed at creating a nuclear bomb.

Rouhani said the deal was not “perfect” but it was necessary to compromise.

“It was really difficult to preserve some of our red lines,” he said. “There was a time we doubted there could be a deal. It’s a historic deal and Iranians will be proud of it for generations to come.”

Among Iran’s main conditions, or “red lines”, at the talks were a refusal to accept a long freeze on nuclear research and development and a demand for a rapid lifting of sanctions.

Thousands of Iranians gathered in the capital, Tehran, to celebrate the deal following the end of Ramadan fast on Tuesday. They waved Iranian flags from their cars, while drivers honked their car horns.

“My personal opinion is that I wish they had done this sooner so people wouldn’t have to go through all these difficulties,” Masumeh Momeni, a resident of Tehran, told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, is now back in Tehran following the 18-day negotiations in the Austrian capital, Vienna.

Arab concern

On Tuesday, Obama said the agreement offered a chance to reset strained relations with Tehran.

“Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off,” he said, adding that the deal “offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We should seize it.”

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the “honest and hard endeavours” of the country’s nuclear negotiating team just after the deal was clinched.

But not everyone is happy with the deal. Arab countries have deep fears of Iran gaining a nuclear weapon, and some have been skeptical that a deal will prevent that from happening.

But equally high for key Sunni-dominated Gulf allies of the United States is the worry that a deal gives Iran the means and an implicit green light to push influence in the region.

Saudi Arabia issued a pointed warning, saying Iran must use any economic gains from the lifting of sanctions to improve the lives of Iranians, “rather than using them to cause turmoil in the region, a matter that will meet a decisive reaction from the nations of the region,” in a statement carried on the state news agency late on Tuesday.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, criticised the deal calling the decision “a historic mistake for the world”.

In a second statement on Tuesday afternoon, Netanyahu said the deal gives Iran incentives “not to change” and said “the world is a much more dangerous place today than it was yesterday”.

Iranians gather for celebrations following a landmark nuclear deal in Tehran [AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi]

Tehran agrees to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief after lengthy negotiations.

by Al Jazeera

World powers and Iran have reached a landmark deal to curb Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief after an 18-day marathon negotiations in Vienna.

The accord was announced on Tuesday by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the European Union’s policy chief Federica Mogherini in a joint statement in the Austrian capital.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the deal a “win-win” solution to end “an unnecessary crisis and open new horizons for dealing with serious problems that affect our international community.”

“I believe this is a historic moment. We are reaching an agreement that is not perfect for everybody but it is what we could accomplish and it is an important achievement for all of us,” said Zarif.

“Today could have been the end of hope on this issue, but now we are starting a new chapter of hope.”

Mogherini said the decision demonstrated that “diplomacy, coordination, cooperation can overcome decades of tensions and confrontations”.

“It is a decision that openned a way to a new chapter in international relations,” she said.

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Vienna, said that for the presidents of the United States and Iran “it is a historic deal that would serve some kind of a re-set after decades of mistrust.”

Hassan Rouhani, the president of Iran, commented on the deal on Twitter:

#IranDeal shows constructive engagement works. With this unnecessary crisis resolved, new horizons emerge with a focus on shared challenges.

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) July 14, 2015

Addressing the Iranian nation, Rouhani said: “We didn’t ask for charity. We asked for fair, just and win-win negotiations.”

He said that “a new chapter has started” and now the government could now focus on other issues of the country.

Barack Obama, the US president, said the American people and legislators should “consider the world without this deal” before making their mind about it.

“I will veto any vote taken against this deal,” he said. “Simply no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East. Our security depends on preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

“This deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification,” said Obama.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, who sees major threat in the deal called the decision “a historic mistake for the world”.

“Iran will get hundreds of billions of dollars with which it will be able to fuel its terror machine,” he said, referring to the expected lifting of crippling Western sanctions on its oil and banking sectors.

The accord seeks to end nearly 12 years of nuclear stand off between Iran and the western powers led by the US.

The accord will keep Iran from producing enough material for a nuclear weapon for at least 10 years and impose new provisions for inspections of Iranian facilities, including military sites.

Iran was resisting the probe in the country’s alleged work on nuclear weapons and demanding that a United Nations arms embargo to be lifted.

It also demanded that any UN Security Council resolution approving the broader deal no longer describe Iran’s nuclear activities as illegal.

Major powers accused Islamic Republic of seeking to build nuclear weapons, an aim it denied, under the guise of a civilian programme.

Iran will slash by abour two-thirds the number of centrifuges from about 19,000 to 6,104 under the deal announced on Tuesday.

A total of 1,044 of these centrifuges will be used for other purposes than uranium enrichment.