Iran and the United States have been negotiating indirectly in Vienna for a year to restore the 2015 deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, after US president Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018.
A key sticking point is Iran’s insistence on removing the designation made by the Trump administration that the IRGC — the clerical regime’s elite military unit with broad reach in the economy — is a terrorist organization.
“If Iran wants sanctions lifting that goes beyond the JCPOA, they’ll need to address concerns of ours that go beyond the JCPOA,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said when asked about the Revolutionary Guards’ delisting. “They will need to negotiate those issues in good faith with reciprocity.”
As Iran has not expressed a willingness to budge on non-nuclear-related issues, Price’s remarks appeared to put to bed the possibility of a unilateral delisting by Washington, even if it meant coaxing Tehran back into compliance with the JCPOA. READ MORE
