Iran confirmed on Saturday that the removal of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, from the American list of “terrorist organizations”, was among the points still under discussion in the negotiations to revive the agreement on Iran’s nuclear.
“The subject of the Revolutionary Guards is definitely part of our negotiations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in an interview with state television.
“We exchanged messages with the Americans about this. So this is one of the topics that is still on the table,” he added.
Tehran has been engaged for several months in talks in Vienna with China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and Germany to save the 2015 agreement supposed to prevent Tehran from acquiring the atomic bomb, in exchange for the lifting of the sanctions which are suffocating the Iranian economy. Iran has always denied wanting to acquire atomic weapons.
The United States has participated indirectly in the Vienna talks since its withdrawal from the agreement in 2018, decided by then-President Donald Trump, and the reinstatement of sanctions against Iran, which in response had gradually freed itself from the limits imposed on its nuclear program.
Mr. Amir-Abdollahian’s statements are the first official confirmation that the removal of the Revolutionary Guards from the US blacklist is among the topics under discussion.
The minister said he was on the table even though senior Guardians had asked that he not be a “barrier” if the deal secured Iran’s “national interests”.
The European Union coordinator responsible for overseeing the Iranian nuclear talks, Enrique Mora, arrives in Tehran on Saturday to meet his Iranian counterpart Ali Baghéri.
Mr Mora said on Twitter that he was working to “bridge the remaining gaps” between the positions of the different parties.
The head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell said for his part on Saturday in Qatar that the conclusion of an agreement was a “matter of days”.
“We are very close to it, but there are still some outstanding questions,” Borrell told reporters.