Iranian Vice-President for Parliamentary Affairs Majid Ansari. Photo: WikiCommons.

Iranian Vice-President for Parliamentary Affairs Majid Ansari on Sunday said the Geneva deal struck by Iran and the six world powers in November was a victory for Tehran and a major defeat for the West, according to semi-official state news agency Fars.

Speaking in Shahriar City, near Tehran, Ansari said, “The Generals of Iran’s diplomatic front (President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his team of negotiators) made the enemies pull back in a breath-taking fight; the first step in the negotiations was victorious and the wall of sanctions cracked.”

The main achievement, from his point of view, was that, “A part of our (frozen) assets was released and is returning to the country.”

Last week, Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said $4.2 billion held in frozen Iranian accounts in global banks has been “unfrozen” and is ready to be paid to Iran.

Fars described the stipulations of the Geneva accord as proceeding to schedule: “The accord required the West to ease some of the existing sanctions in exchange for Tehran’s confidence-building measure not to develop the national nuclear program for a six-month period. The frozen Iranian assets was released in eight states, as agreed, and Tehran diluted half of its 20% enriched uranium, while the remaining half is oxidized.”

However, opposition to the nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration has pointed to Iranian oil exports going beyond the approved thresholds of the agreement. Meanwhile, on the question of Iran’s the nuclear capability, itself, according to Israel, the Islamic Republic would now be just weeks away from being able to power a nuclear bomb if its enrichment program resumes.