3rd LD Writethru: Historic Iranian nuclear deal reached

A historic agreement has been reached over the Iranian nuclear issue between Iran and six world major countries, a diplomatic source confirmed on Tuesday.

The comprehensive agreement was clinched between Iran and the P5 Plus One group -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany -- after more than two weeks of bargain in the capital city of Austria.

The text of the deal is around 100 pages with five annexes, which specify key areas of the Iranian nuclear issue, including sanction relief and action plan, nuclear technology cooperation, the committee of the monitoring of the implementation, capping of Iran's nuclear capacity, and draft of UN Security Council resolution, according to the source.

Under the deal, Iran would ship most of its nuclear stockpile to Russia, blocking the technical path to a nuclear bomb, the source said.

The comprehensive deal would be sent to UN Security Council in a short time and it needs to be endorsed by the Council, and the period before the comprehensive deal starts to be implemented by all sides could be around half a year, the source said.

The deal would specify that the related UN resolutions on economic and financial sanctions against Iran will be terminated all at once under a UN resolution and in an agreed framework, Iranian media reported.

A U.S. state department spokesperson said representatives are meeting for the last time in the UN headquarters in Vienna before a press conference.

Iran's foreign minister hailed the deal as "a historic moment" but acknowledged the deal was "not perfect".

"I believe this is a historic moment. We are reaching an agreement that is not perfect for anybody but it is what we could accomplish and it is an important achievement for all of us," Mohammad Javad Zarif said at a final ministerial meeting between Iran and six world powers in Vienna.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani confirmed the deal on Twitter feed, saying it "shows constructive engagement works."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he welcomed the nuclear deal and the world could breathe a sigh of relief, adding that countries negotiating the deal had made a hard choice for stability and cooperation.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the nuclear deal was as an opportunity worth seizing and threatened to use veto power if the Congress prevented its successful implementation.

But he cautioned that U.S. sanctions on Tehran would stay in place for "human rights violations" and other issues.

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in an email Tuesday that Iran and the nuclear watchdog agreed to cooperate to resolve Tehran's past suspicious nuclear activities.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said he has signed a roadmap with Iran, "a significant step forward toward clarifying outstanding issues regarding Iran's nuclear program."

Under the roadmap, Iran would address the IAEA's concern over the so-called possible military dimensions of its nuclear plan, including resolve the Parchin issue, a military site where IAEA suspected Iran might have carried out explosive tests relevant to the nuclear weapon plan.

"It (The roadmap) sets out a clear sequence of activities over the coming months, including the provision by Iran of explanations regarding outstanding issues. It provides for technical expert meetings, technical measures and discussions, as well as a separate arrangement regarding the issue of Parchin," Amano said.

An IAEA report in November 2011 said based on the "credible" information the agency obtained, Iran might have carried out suspicious nuclear activities related to the atomic weapon research plan.

However, Iran denies the allegation, saying the report was based on misleading Western intelligence.

After Rouhani took office in 2013, Tehran and the six countries intensified the nuclear talks and signed a deal in Geneva in November 2013, under which Tehran would suspend some disputed nuclear activities in exchange for limited sanction relief from Western states, buying time for diplomatic efforts.

In the past 18 months, Iran and the six countries have resolved many tough issues which were once seen as an impossible task to be done, such as capping Iran's nuclear capacity and giving greater transparency of Tehran's atomic plan. Endi