Sanctions Dispute Threatens Iran Deal

May 1st 2022

Arms Control Today

By Kelsey Davenport

Sanctions targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) remain the primary obstacle to reaching a deal to return the United States and Iran to compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said in an April 11 press briefing that Iran has finalized the necessary details to return its nuclear program to compliance with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but is waiting for the United States to “show the will to return to its own obligations” and respond to the latest Iranian proposal on lifting certain IRGC sanctions.

Tehran is demanding the removal of Washington’s designation of the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization as part of the agreement to restore compliance with the accord. The IRGC was not designated as a foreign terrorist organization until April 2019, so it is not included in sanctions that the United States would be required to remove to return to JCPOA compliance. But the Biden administration has said that, as part of an agreement to return to compliance alongside Iran, it would lift additional sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump that are inconsistent with the nuclear deal.

The U.S. negotiating team reportedly offered to remove the designation on the IRGC if Tehran provided assurances that it would deescalate tensions in the Middle East and not retaliate further for the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani, the general who headed the IRGC Quds Force, in 2020.

ran rejected that proposal and offered its own, on which Enrique Mora, EU coordinator of the group of countries that are currently party to the deal (China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom), briefed the Biden administration in March. The United States has yet to respond.

Read more on the original:

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-05/news/sanctions-dispute-threatens-iran-deal