"Iran's aim of having sanctions against it lifted by the end of January under a deal with major powers is 'not impossible', the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog monitoring its implementation said on Wednesday...
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano, whose agency must verify that Iran has put the required nuclear restrictions in place for sanctions to be lifted, told Reuters that deadline could be met.
'If everything goes well, it is not impossible,' he said in an interview when asked if so-called Implementation Day, on which IAEA verification and the lifting of sanctions are both supposed to take place, could occur by the end of January.
Iran said after an IAEA board meeting on Tuesday that it hoped to have put the restrictions in place within two to three weeks. Amano has said his agency would then need a matter of weeks to verify the curbs...
Amano, who has headed the IAEA for six years, would also not be drawn on how long the agency would need for its verification, beyond that it would take weeks rather than days or months...
The IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors decided on Tuesday to end its investigation of Iran's past, passing a resolution closing the matter by consensus, which means unopposed.
Beyond the board, Israel and some observers have said Iran's past activities should be investigated more thoroughly before sanctions against it are lifted, pointing to Iran's less than total cooperation with the IAEA...
'We don't assess attitude, we verify facts,' [Amano] said. 'Whether they have fully cooperated, 80 percent cooperated, that we don't say and we are not interested.'"