Nuclear 'Implementation Day' looms for Iran as prisoners freed

US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart met for a final time in Vienna today ahead of an expected announcement by the UN watchdog that their momentous 2015 nuclear accord can enter into force.
In an apparent sign of goodwill, Iran said that four Iranian dual-national prisoners had been freed, with local media reporting that they included Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Idaho.
In Vienna meanwhile, in the same plush hotel where they agreed last July's landmark nuclear deal, Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif met to iron out the final details.

This was ahead of an expected UN nuclear watchdog announcement that Iran has complied with its side of the accord, allowing the lifting of sanctions, including on Iran's lifeblood oil exports.
Zarif said earlier as he arrived in the Austrian capital that this was a "good day for the world".
"It's a good day for the people of Iran... And also a good day for the region," he said, saying it removed "the shadow of a baseless confrontation" in the Middle East.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report is expected to confirm that Iran has dramatically scaled down its nuclear programme as agreed in the hard-won July 14 deal agreed in Vienna.

This, combined with ultra-close IAEA inspections, extend to at least a year - from a few months previously - how long Iran would need to make one nuclear bomb's worth of fissile material.
Iran has always denied wanting nuclear weapons, saying its activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes such as power generation.
The IAEA's green light means that a raft of US, EU and UN sanctions on the Islamic republic can be lifted, allowing oil exports to resume and opening up the 80-million-strong country to business.
The Vienna agreement between Iran and six major powers was sealed after two years of rollercoaster negotiations following the June 2013 election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

The highly complex deal drew a line under a standoff dating back to 2002 marked by failed diplomatic initiatives, ever-tighter sanctions, defiant nuclear expansion by Iran and threats of military action.
In addition it put Iran and the United States on the road to better relations some 35 years after the Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed shah, and at a particularly explosive time in the Middle East.