The Biden administration plans to reject an Iranian demand that the United States lift its designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Terror List as a condition for renewing the 2015 nuclear agreement, a senior administration official told The Washington Post.
“The onus is on Iran whether we have a nuclear deal. The President will stick to core principles. The Iranians know our views,” said the official.
This came as Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said Saturday that Tehran would not give up its right to develop its nuclear industry for peaceful purposes, and all parties involved in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear accord should respect this.
The indirect talks between Iran and the US have faltered after 11 months of negotiations in Vienna, as each side throws the ball into the court of the other to take political decisions to settle the outstanding issues. Terror List
“For more than the one-hundredth time, our message from Tehran to Vienna is that we will not back off from the Iranian people’s nuclear rights… not even an iota,” state media quoted Raisi as saying in a speech marking Iran’s Nuclear Technology Day.
One Iranian diplomat told Reuters that Tehran had rejected a US proposal to overcome the sticking point by keeping the IRGC’s overseas arm, the Quds Force, under FTO sanctions while delisting the IRGC as an entity.
However, the US State Department said that the Quds Force should remain on its blacklist after the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, told the Senate Armed Services Committee: “In my personal opinion, I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terrorist organization, and I do not support them being delisted.”
In response to whether the Biden administration shares General Milley’s view, State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said the President shares the chairman’s view that IRGC Qods Forces are terrorists.
“I would say is out of the 107 Biden administration designations in relation to Iran, 86 have specifically targeted the IRGC-related persons as well as affiliates,” said Porter.
