US top general aims not to delist Iran’s Quds force from terrorist organization.
The senior US general has stated that removing Iran’s elite Quds Force from Washington’s list of “foreign terrorist organizations” is not something he supports, despite this being a crucial demand from Tehran in order to resurrect the multilateral nuclear deal.
Mark Milley, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, stated that the Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), should not be delisted.
“I believe the IRGC Quds Force is a terrorist organisation, and I do not support its delisting,” Milley, the chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.
Just seconds before, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had refused to answer the same question.
“Respectfully, I will not comment on ongoing discussions or speculate on what my advise to the president will be,” he told legislators.
Reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran scale back its nuclear development in exchange for the relaxation of sanctions against its economy, has been a primary foreign policy focus for US President Joe Biden’s administration.
The Department of State, which reports to the president, is in charge of deciding whether or not to blacklist or delist groups.
Milley’s remarks do not necessarily reflect the Biden administration’s position, but they may fuel Republican resistance to whatever concessions the US would make to Iran in exchange for a settlement.
For weeks, European, Iranian, and US officials have claimed that an agreement is close at hand — but the IRGC appears to be the ultimate stumbling block.
Former US President Donald Trump cancelled the deal in 2018 and launched a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Iran.
As a result, Iran has been easing up on its commitments to the accord and moving forward with its nuclear programme.
In 2019, Trump’s government designated the IRGC as a “terrorist” group, the first such designation against a branch of a foreign country’s military, amid rising regional tensions.
Then, in early 2020, Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, was killed in a US air raid in Baghdad.
Biden’s top aides have stated that the IRGC is still a “terrorist” organisation, but have not ruled out delisting the group, noting that even if delisted, the Revolutionary Guards would still be subject to a plethora of US sanctions.
Since April of last year, US and Iranian officials have had many rounds of indirect talks in Vienna, Austria, to resurrect the nuclear deal, the most recent of which ended last month.
Despite the apparent IRGC deadlock, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed scepticism about the pact’s chances of being revived this week.
On Wednesday, April 6, Blinken told MSNBC, “I’m not overly bullish about the possibilities of actually getting an agreement to conclusion.”
“I continue to feel that it would be in our country’s best interests if we could return to compliance with the deal, assuming Iran would do the same.” We haven’t arrived.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has frequently criticised Washington’s “excessive demands” for postponing the talks.
Last month, Ryan Costello, policy director of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a Washington, DC-based pro-reinstatement group, argued that delisting the IRGC would be symbolic, given US sanctions on the group and its leaders would remain in place.
Nonetheless, he believes it will cause substantial political reaction for Biden in the United States.
“It would be a great tragedy to have come this far and expended so much efforts on reassembling a really excellent deal only for it to break apart over this somewhat symbolic designation,” Costello said to News Agency.
