US insists on keeping the elite Quds Force of Iran Guards Corps on terror list

Tehran is demanding that the IRGC be removed from the blacklist. This push has sparked outrage from some US politicians, especially within the right-wing opposition Washington**, United States:** The United States insisted on 8 April, 2022, on keeping the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps on its designated list of terror groups, as Washington pushes on with negotiations to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, had told a congressional hearing on 7 April, 2022, that in his “personal opinion” the Quds Force should not be dropped from the terror list, which has been one of Tehran’s conditions to renew the deal. The Guards as a whole, as well as the Quds Force in particular, were blacklisted under former president Donald Trump, who wanted to toughen sanctions against Iran after Washington pulled out of the agreement aimed at preventing Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. Porter appeared to back that up on Friday when she noted that “out of the 107 Biden administration [sanctions> designations in relation to Iran, 86 have specifically targeted the IRGC-related persons as well as affiliates.” While that appeared to hint that the US was moving toward delisting the IRGC, she did however reiterate that an Iranian nuclear deal was “neither imminent nor certain at this stage”.