Iran nuclear talks freeze amid terrorist label spat — even with deal on the table
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Joe Biden has been placing pressure to revive the nuclear deal | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Iran nuclear talks freeze amid terrorist label spat — even with deal on the table
Politico – April 29th 2022
BY STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN AND NAHAL TOOSI
VIENNA — Negotiations to restore the Iran nuclear deal have reached a complete standstill.
Despite having a roughly 27-page agreement virtually ready to go, diplomats are still hung up over one final sticking point between the U.S. and Iran: The status of a powerful branch of the Iranian military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The U.S. placed the group on its “Foreign Terrorist Organization” list in 2019, part of President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign after pulling out of the nuclear deal, which limited Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief.
Now the issue has been dragged into the final stages of long-running talks to revive the nuclear deal under President Joe Biden. The topic is of such immense political sensitivity in both Washington and Tehran that a compromise has proved impossible and now seems increasingly unrealistic.
The sticking point revolves around the terrorist label technically falling outside the purview of the nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The U.S., which maintains numerous other sanctions on Iran, is loath to strike agreements beyond the original deal’s contours, yet Tehran insists the subjects should be interwoven.
“The U.S. position has been that unless Iran agrees to take certain steps to assuage security concerns beyond the JCPOA, Washington will not lift the terror designation, which itself is beyond the JCPOA,” a U.S. official familiar with the issue told POLITICO.
And that stance is not changing, the official added, “especially given ongoing threats by the IRGC against [Americans].” The Biden administration is facing bipartisan political resistance at home to not strip the terrorist tag. Because of all these factors, the official said, “the Biden administration is highly unlikely at this point to drop the designation in the context of the JCPOA talks.”
The stalemate has made an Iran nuclear deal revival, seen as imminent only a few months back, a distant prospect. Talks also briefly ran aground recently over a demand from Russia — an original signatory on the agreement — that it receives sanctions protections for any future business with Iran.
Now, the terrorist label appears to be the tallest hurdle.
Washington initially offered to delist the IRGC in exchange for Iran committing to refrain from targeting Americans in the region and eschewing retaliation against former U.S. officials deemed responsible for decisions like killing IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.
But Iran refused to make such reciprocal concessions.
Enrique Mora, the European Union official coordinating the indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran, has been transmitting proposals between the two sides over the past seven weeks in vain and even engaged in shuttle diplomacy between Tehran and Washington last month in an effort to achieve a resolution.
Still, the talks have come to an effective halt.
While Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell have discussed the possibility of another personal meeting in a recent phone call, no get-together has materialized.
The Iranian foreign minister has told Borrell that the “U.S. administration needs to have the courage to correct the past wrong policies of the White House. There is no doubt in the will of Iranian government to reach a good, strong durable agreement.”
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