The US and the EU today lifted biting oil and financial sanctions on Iran and released about USD 100 billion of its assets after UN inspectors concluded that Tehran has complied with a historic deal with world powers to curb its nuclear ambitions.
"Today marks the day of a safer world," US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Vienna as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) certified that Iran has fulfilled its promises.
"Iran has taken every step that it committed to take, dating back two full years," Kerry said.
"Today marks the moment the Iran deal has transitioned from ambitious promises on paper to measurable actions in practice," he said.
The US sanctions-related commitments are now in effect, Kerry said, announcing lifting of crippling sanctions against Iran.
His statement came just hours after Tehran and Washington swapped long-held prisoners.
Reacting to the developments, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said, "We Iranians have reached out to the world in a sign of friendliness, and leaving behind the enmities, suspicions and plots, have opened a new chapter in the relations of Iran with the world."
"The implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is not a loss for any country," the official IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying.
"The friends of Iran are happy and its competitors need not worry, we are not a threat to any government or nation. We are a messenger of peace, stability and security in the region and the world," he said.
The landmark deal between Iran and world powers - the US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany - was agreed last July.
In a joint statement with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in Vienna, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, representing the six world powers, said that as a result "multilateral and national economic and financial sanctions related to Iran's nuclear programme are lifted".
"This achievement clearly demonstrates that with political will, perseverance, and through multilateral diplomacy, we can solve the most difficult issues," she said.
In its report, IAEA said Iran has shipped 98 per cent of its fuel to Russia and dismantled more than 12,000 centrifuges so that they could not enrich uranium any further.
Iran also poured cement into the core of a reactor designed to produce plutonium, it added.
