One of the last obstacles to reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – Tehran’s demand to remove its Revolutionary Guards from a U.S. terror listing – is more an issue of politics than substance, analysts said.
While the two sides had appeared close to reviving the pact a month ago, talks have since stalled over last-minute Russian demands, the Nowruz holiday, and the unresolved issue of whether Washington might remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list.
The United States and Iran have been engaged it fitful, indirect talks for more than a year on reviving the 2015 deal under which Iran limited its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions. terror listing
The United States has weighed dropping the designation in return for some kind of action or commitment from Iran to rein in IRGC activities, one source has said.
However, the White House is well aware of “the political sensitivity and price associated with” removing the elite force from the list, said Dennis Ross, a long-time U.S. Middle East negotiator, noting that some Democrats oppose dropping it.
“There is hesitancy on the part of the political side of the White House,” he added.
A senior administration official said U.S. President Joe Biden did not intend to drop the terrorism designation, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported on Friday.
Asked about that report, a senior Biden administration official said, “We are not going to negotiate in public. There are still gaps.”
“The onus here is really on Iran at this stage, particularly on this issue,” the official added on condition of anonymity.
LITTLE ECONOMIC IMPACT
When the Trump administration designated the IRGC as an FTO in 2019, it was the first time Washington had so blacklisted part of another country’s military and was seen by some as a poison pill to make it harder to revive the nuclear deal, which then-President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018.