updates throughout the day, head to aljazeera.com, where the news continues 24-7. >> between u.n. security council members, germany, and iran, hope halts temporarily iran's nuclear deal. that is tonight's "inside story." >> hello, i'm ray suarez. it's only the first step towards a far more difficult goal. if the obama administration

wants to make sure that iran never builds a bomb a lot more has to happen. that means satisfying iran talks from both sides accidental of the discontent in tehran not to mention the discontent in jerusalem. even the years between iran and it's neighbors and the west , first, this background. >> reporter: word of agreement to the west appeared as a victory to many iranians. crowd chants no war, no sanctions, no insults, no submission as iran's negotiator foreign minister returned to iran a hero . >> this makes iranians proud. thanks to these meetings people

have been happy over the last couple of days because they're overcoming their problems. >> reporter: iranians see the agreement as an end to the chokehold of sanctions long endured. >> we're very optimistic with these relations being forged our lives can go back to how they were before. it's very nice and desirable to have relations with other countries after ten years. >> reporter: secretary of state john kerry announced over the weekend an agreement in which iran would halt major components of its nuclear program in the first-step deal. iran will curtail it's uranium enrichment program. in exchange the u.s. will release $7 billion worth of frozen assets. secretary kerry said any deal is fragile, and iran must keep up its end of the bargain. >> this is not going to change overnight. we have a long building process to engage in

here. we need to put to test iran's words and intentions without any cobwebs, without any false assumptions, without any illusions. this is a hard road. >> reporter: top temperature low mats flew to geneva to say what appear to be stalled talks. the p 5 plus one. that's six world powers including the united states, france, britain, germany, china and russia agree that iran will temporarily leave uranium enrichment to above 5%, permit daily monitoring by international inspectors, halt construction of the iraq heavy water reactor. iran's new president a hassan rouhani, welcome the agreement and say he saw it as an affirmation as the

country's right to enrich uranium. >> iran will continue it's enrichment. therefore i announce to the people of iran that enrichment will continue in the same way as before. >> reporter: but the secretary of state kerry said that was not part of the deal. >> no, there is no right to enrich. we do not recognize a right to enrich. it is clear in the npt, the non-proliferation treaty it is very, very clear that there is no right to enrich. >> reporter: israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu called the agreement a historic mistake, saying that his country has the most to lose. netanyahu stressed that israel is not bound by this agreement. >> this agreement has made the world a much more dangerous place. i know that many share the concern of israel, especially in the region.

there is a reason for this. we demand that iran crease al cease all uranium enrichment. this is in direct convention of u.n. security council. >> reporter: israel is not the only concern about the appearance of an open-ended agreement with the predominantly shiite iran. saudi arabia is worried about iran's possible warming with the u.s. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle voice their discontent almost immediate. >> i we just feel more pressure needs to be brought on iran rather than to make this deal and take the pressure off of iran , which will allow them to go forward.

>> it's disappointing to me that iran will be allowed to enrich while talking. i wouldn' i woe thought it would be a prerequisite. >> the agreement is here. and we have to make it work. and i think we need to be very, very careful of the iranians. >> nothing in the detail i have seen so far, nothing in what secretary kerry just said moves us in the direction of preventing iran from developing a nuclear weapon. >> reporter: some in congress are considering new sanctions against iran. something the iranians say would stop the agreement completely. president obama praised the deal and warned congress not to be hasty . >> obama: going forward we'll continue to work closely with congress. however now is not the time to create new

sanctions. it would ol only de rail our new direction. >> reporter: years in the making this buys time towards a comprehensive settlement. joining us now from the white house is deputy national security adviser ben rhodes. in the hours after the agreement here's what the new president of iran had to say. the outcome of the negotiations is the 5 plus 1, in other words the world powers have recognized iran's nuclear rights. did the american delegation leaving geneva leaving think that's what it done . >> what we do not recognize is the right to enrich , can we achieve a mutually defined

peaceful nuclear program that the united states and the p5+1 can agree to with iran, ensures that program will be for peaceful purposes. that's what the next months will test. >> until then, the p5+1 relations had been irreconcilable. are the parties closer to describe iran five years hence, ten years hence that they can agree on? >> reporter: that's the challenge. we bought time with this interim agreement to halt the process of the uranium treatment. iran still has to deal with u.n. security council issues that are pending, but six months from now can we say that the p 5 plus 1 can assure that it will be peaceful and they can

can have ac mandarin h access to peaceful energy. >> will the next run of months give us an idea of whether the inspection regime works? whether iran really will open what it has to the gaze of the world? >> reporter: that's a very important question, ray. what we have here are unprecedented inspections. access to the production facilities of centerfuges, uranium mines and mills, and heavy water reactor that we've been concerned about, that will verify that iran is keeping its commitments under the first-step agreement and give us greater insight into the uranium program. >> two key parties is u.s. close alley israel, and leaders in the

congress who have shown intense concerns in this issue. >> reporter: we understand that the israeli government is skeptical of iran. that's understandable given the threats from iran over the years, and congress has been vested in this issue. the day after the agreement was reached president obama spoke with prime minister netanyahu. our teams are going to work together and have an understanding of how negotiations are going. as congress the sanctions that are put in place brought us to where we are today. but now is not the time to bring in new sanctions. that could de rail negotiations before we have time to test whether or not we can reach an agreement. >> certainly in the congress and israel as well, the mistrust of the iranian government is so high, it was suggested that anything that is agreed to is really a trap. that iran has no intense of fulfilling it's side

how do you negotiate with that kind of atmosphere? it must be tough. >> reporter: we're dealing with three kic decades of mistrust between iran and the west. the deal is not only based on trust we'll be able to verify that iran is keeping its commitments over the course of the next six months and that will give us confidence that iran will follow through on what they agreed to. >> if all parties keep their assurances over the next six months, does this have a chance to change the map in the wide be middle east? >> reporter: right now this is focused on the nuclear issue. we're not bringing in the other issues of iranian policy, their support of hezbollah, president assad in syria. but the president has said at the u.n. assembly and even the other night, if we can make progress at the nuclear issue we may be

able to chip away at the mistrust between the united states and iran that has been prevalent over the last 30 years and that may open the door to a different relationship if the iranian government moves in a different direction not only with words but actions. >> israeli counterparts are coming to washington from the security adviser staff in jerusalem, what will we have to say to them? >> reporter: we'll go through in detail the agreement and we've been briefing them regularly. and we'll hear their concerns of what is most important as we continue with negotiation. what is most certain to israel, and what they need to know about our negotiating strategy going into this next round of talks. we've had very close consultation with israel on this nuclear issue for years now. >> dan rhodes, thanks for joining us. >> reporter: thanks, ray. >> when we come back we'll be joined by three people closely

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>> evey weeknight on al jazeera america change the way you look at news tune into live news at 8 and 11 >> i'm john seigenthaler and here's a look at the

headlines.. >> infomation changes by the hour here... >> our team of award winning journalists brings you up to the minute coverage of today's events... then, at 9 and midnight. america tonight goes deeper with groundbreaking investigative coverage of the nation's top stories... >> a fresh take on the stories that connect to you... >> live news at 8 and 11 eastern followed by america tonight on al jazeera america there's more to it. >> welcome back. i'm ray suarez. this is "inside story." joining us, a senior associate at the carnegie endowment where he focuses on iran and the middle east. from denver, former career diplomat who was the head of the u.s. delegations to the six-party talks on the north korean nuclear issue. he's now dean of the joseph corbel at the university of

denver, an . kareem, did you give them much chance to wrap up this quickly? >> before negotiations wrapped up this week, i felt they were almost there. all side wanted to get this deal done, especially the iranians. the economy is under draconian sanctions, tremendous pressure. the obama administration wanted this done as well. the big issue, one of the big stumbling blocks was the right to enrich uranium. iranians wanted the explicit recognition of enriching uranium uranium, and in the end they agreed to disagree on that.

that could be a stumble block in the final deal. >> the stumbling block is pretty important to both sides of the negotiation by pushing it out over the six remaining negotiations, are they just deferring something that is just no way they can both agree on? >> to some extent they're just deferring something. the iranians have held strong on that issue for years, and it's hard to back peddle on it. but the six months is to show the iranian people that there is a relationship on offer here. the relationship with the international community, and to show the iranian people there oh could be some improvements in their economic situation. in the meantime, president obama and secretary john kerry are going to have their hands full in washington where favoritely

i've never seen the political climate so toxic as it is today. there is politics in iran, in washington, and across the middle east where the saudis have real concerns about the iranians, and about the overall middle east and of course israel. it's a tough environment for a deal and knowing the right way to go. >> sharon, when you look at the technical specific cases, both sides are agreed to in the deal, does this represent a real set of surrendered for iran? did they give up anything significant to get the economic benefits over the next several months. >> they gave up some things. to stop enrichment, to stop the facility and ship out their stock pile of

enriched uranium. we didn't get that far out. the centerfuge cascades will be disconnected because they are not going to enrich up to that 20%. they're not shipping out their stock pile of enriched uranium. they're going to dilute it and put it in a form that is a little less dangerous. this is an agreement that is an interim step. it's not so much the agreement itself, but the fact that they even got a freeze, this is what we've been after for, you know, close to ten years. this is to buy time. this is not the perfect agreement. >> there is language in the agreement about checking that all sides are living up to their part of the agreement. more with our guests in a moment.

stay with us. >> al jazeera america is the only news channel that brings you live news at the top of every hour. >> here are the headlines at this hour. >> only on al jazeera america. determining using some sort of subjective interpretation of their policy as to whether or not your particular report was actually abusive, because if it doesn't contain language that specifically threatens you directly or is targeted towards you specifically, they may not consider it abuse. they may consider it offensive. and in that case they just recommend that you block that person. >> i don't want to minimise this, because i mean, there's

some really horrible things that are on line, and it's not - it's not just twitter, what has happened through social media and the anonymity of the net is that you see websites, hate-filled websites targetting all sorts of groups, popping up. there has been a huge number of those that exist as well. >> and now, a techknow minute...

>> evey weeknight on al jazeera america change the way you look at news tune into live news at 8 and 11 >> i'm john seigenthaler and here's a look at the headlines.. >> infomation changes by the hour here... >> our team of award winning journalists brings you up to the minute coverage of today's events...

then, at 9 and midnight. america tonight goes deeper with groundbreaking investigative coverage of the nation's top stories... >> a fresh take on the stories that connect to you... >> live news at 8 and 11 eastern followed by america tonight on al jazeera america there's more to it. >> welcome back. we're talking about the iran nuclear deal. still with us, kareem, senior associate at the carnegie endowment. ambassador christopher hill, a former diplomat head of the six party talks on the north korean nuclear issue, and sharon at the center for international studies. there is a hec mechanism in plae for checking but there is such a high degree of mistrust between the parties. will the outside signatories be able to check whether iran is doing everything it promised?

>> i think in this initial six-months period they are not concerned does iran have clandestine facility? i think this period of verification is going to be, you know, fairly easy. but we're going to have people on the ground. and they're going to be on the ground more often than they would have otherwise been. most of the monitoring will be by the energy inspectors. what they'll get is a wider access array of facilities, they'll have access to the centerfuge facilities, uranium mines, that kind of thing. they'll have more monitoring television cameras or cameras and ,and they'll be on the ground at the enrichment plants.

i think the long -term agreement is how contained will iran will allow it's enrichment program to be. >> you mentioned at the outset the terrible toll the economic sanction versus taken on iran as a country, the iranian people, certainly, who are the different interests at play inside that country that need to be in line to make this work? >> you have the population, which is very young and sophisticated, and has really been longing for reintegration with the outside world. they're not interested in revolutionary resistence. they're interested in integration. but you have more importantly the political leadership, more importantly the the ayatollah. he has had this ideology of resistence as part of the pillars of the islamic regime. on one hand he needs a nuclear

detant on the outside world to reduce these sanctions. on the other hand he's skeptical for reconciliation, especially with the united states. to manage that just right is difficult, but they seem to be on that track. >> you know, ambassador hill it's hard to think of a country more pressed by sanctions, more isolated from the world community than north korea. and the agreements with the six-party talk were able to postpone it, but ultimately not being able to prevent it. what is difference with iran? >> you really put the finger on it. with north korea we also tried to layout a future in which they would some how be integrated with the international community. we laid out some of this in our joint statement back in 2005,

but it was never clear that this is really what the north korean leadership wanted. whereas in sharp contrast there are many people in iran, young people, and other people, who would very much like to see this integration take place. there is more hope on the iran side than the north korea side. what failed in north korea they never gave us the capacity to really verify the agreement. they gave us capacity to verify the graphite moderator reactor, but frankly, we could do that from outer space. they did not allow us into undeclared sites, with that we could not continue. i think uranium enrichment is really key in iran. it's going to be tough to do this verification, but i think at least we have a more robust system of

availability to verify. with sanctions with north korea, we never really relaxed sanctions. at one point we held $23.000000 of their money that was frozen to a bank in macao. we ultimately gave them back $23 million, but i don't think north korea was going to do something or not do something over $23 million. in iran there is the extraordinary length and breadth of these financial sanctions has been something that plays a completely different and far more strong role in the iran deal. >> quickly, mr. ambassador, before we go, there are many in congress who are not happy about this deal. there are many in the israeli government who not interested in this deal. are they x factors that can still make implementation difficult for the united states? >> when you look at polling data

in the u.s. i think a strong majority of the american people want to see a deal. when you see opposition in congress, most of it is visceral opposition. just as these people who impose them would never give in to sanctions it's strange that they assume that everyone would give in to sanctions. they've exaggerated the rule of sanctions and under appreciated in my view the role of negotiation. >> there is so much more to say on this topic, we'll have to have you all back to see how it all works out. this brings the end of this he haedition of "inside story."

>> welcome to al jazeera america, i'm del walters. these are the stories we are following for you. a major winter storm threatening holiday travel. pope francis cracking down on the catholic church. and the controversial cia program exposed. a program turning guantanamo bay inmates into double agents for the us. ♪ that winter storm that dumped snow across the west and midwest now moving east and could effect your holiday travel