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. Tehran is racing to keep its side of the deal reached with world powers in July, under which the sanctions that have battered its economy will be suspended in exchange for Iran severely limiting its nuclear program. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who has overseen a thaw with the West, voiced hope on Wednesday that the sanctions would be removed in January, "delivering one of the electoral promises of the government" before elections on Feb. 26. 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. On Wednesday, Amano confirmed that Iran was moving quickly to keep its side of the deal with the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China. "Our inspectors are on the ground and they are observing their activities, and with their report I can tell that Iran is undertaking activities at a very high pace," Amano said, though he declined to provide details on those activities. The restrictions Iran must put in place include drastically reducing the number of centrifuges installed at its underground enrichment sites, removing the core vessel of a reactor at Arak and shrinking its stockpile of enriched uranium. "If your question is that Iran is planning to complete their preparatory activities in two, three weeks' time, I don't have a reason to doubt it," he said. "If everything goes well it can go very smoothly, but if there's some mishandling it will take more time," he said. "It's difficult to say."

Dozens of U.S. Republican senators called on President Barack Obama on Wednesday not to lift sanctions on Iran, saying Tehran's recent ballistic missile testing showed "blatant disregard for its international obligations." Thirty-six of the 54 Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, signed a letter urging Obama not to lift sanctions on Iran as planned under an international nuclear agreement announced in July. The letter, seen by Reuters, said the missile tests enhance Tehran's capability to target Israel and U.S. troops in the region. "That is why it is a mistake to treat Iran's ballistic missile program as separate from Iran's nuclear program," the letter said. The letter was organized by Senator Kelly Ayotte, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. U.S. Republican lawmakers, and several of Obama's fellow Democrats, have been deeply skeptical about the nuclear deal. Their worries have intensified since Iran's rocket test on Oct. 10. In a report first reported by Reuters, a team of sanctions monitors found on Tuesday that Iran violated a U.N. Security Council resolution by test-firing a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Gehghan was quoted by state media on Wednesday saying that Iran will not accept any restrictions on its missile program.

Meanwhile, The U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously Wednesday to impose tough new sanctions on banks that knowingly do business with the Lebanon-based Shiite militant movement Hezbollah. The bill targeting the Iran-backed group, which Washington considers a terrorist organization, now goes to the White House for Obama's signature. The legislation also targets Hezbollah's television channel Al-Manar by aiming to cut the broadcast of satellite operators that air the channel's programming. The House adopted the measure 422 to 0, following a unanimous vote in the Senate on November 17. Obama will sign the legislation, a senior administration official told AFP, adding that the administration has worked with Congress for years "to intensify the pressure against the Hezbollah terrorist organization." The new rules direct the president to prescribe punishing regulations against financial institutions that conduct transactions with Hezbollah or otherwise launder funds for the organization. It also requires the administration to present to Congress a series of reports highlighting the group's narcotics trafficking, transnational crime, and operations of international groups linked to Hezbollah, especially in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The administration will list those particular countries that support Hezbollah, or in which the group maintains a key logistical base. "Hezbollah has had to cast a wide net because most Lebanese banks have not wanted to do business with them," a congressional expert on the legislation told AFP. "There is no question that Hezbollah is stronger than ever," said Republican congresswoman Jackie Walorski, who described the group as a dangerous enemy to Israel and one that has amassed more than 150,000 rockets and missiles.