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History was made Saturday night when Western powers and Iran struck an interim deal over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program.  After weeks and weeks of tough negotiations, which followed years of unfruitful talks, the P5 plus 1 (permanent members of the Security Council and Germany) traded sanctions relief for some Iranian steps to halt the country’s uranium enrichment program.

The West has long believed that Iran’s enrichment program is a cover for building a nuclear weapon, which Iran denies.  Both U.S. and Israeli intelligence have concluded that the political decision to make a weapon has not been made by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The Obama administration hailed the deal as one that would halt progress towards becoming a nuclear weapons state.

“Simply put, [the negotiators] cut off Iran’s most likely paths to a bomb,” said President Obama in a speech after the deal was signed.

It marked a new era for U.S.-Iran relations.  After decades of mistrust, complete with a shadow war waged around the world, the U.S. and Iran came together to talk and hash out their differences.  While the deal is only an interim one, it buys six months of time in order to negotiate an even more far-reaching accord.  It also sparked intense opposition from members of Congress and Israel.   

Here’s what you should know about the deal that was inked in Geneva on Saturday night:

1.  Sanctions Relief for Curbs to Nuclear Program

The basic parameters of a deal have been known for a while, and not much shifted from those parameters when it came to the deal reached in Geneva.  Iran will halt enriching uranium above the 5 percent level and “neutralize” its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium; that makes the level of enrichment further away from the 90 percent needed to make a nuclear weapon.  Iran will stop installing new centrifuges, the equipment needed to enrich uranium, according to the deal. Additionally, the Islamic Republic will stop working on the Arak reactor, a heavy-water facility Western powers suspect could be used to produce plutonium, which is an alternate path towards a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s side of the bargain will be monitored by unprecedented levels of inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).