Politico:

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.

See also:
–Are Iran And China Entering Into A New Era Of Relations? – Analysis
–Iran Wants To Expand Strategic Ties With China To Confront US
–Iran Moves Centrifuge-Parts Workshop Underground At Natanz, IAEA Says

The Guardian:

Leading former diplomats including seven ex-UK foreign and defence ministers have warned the Iran nuclear talks are heading to “corrosive stalemate devolving into a cycle of increased nuclear tension” and urged Tehran and Washington to show more flexibility.

Year-long talks in Vienna on reviving the deal and for the US, which was pulled out of the agreement by Donald Trump, to lift sanctions on Iran have in effect ground to a halt in a dispute over whether the west will lift the foreign terrorist organisation designation, and sanctions, against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The former diplomats said in an open letter that a final draft text of a renewed agreement was ready to be signed and warned that “for US and European leaders to let slip the opportunity to defuse a nuclear crisis in the Middle East would be a grave mistake”.

See also:
–White House Worried Iran Could Develop Nuclear Weapon In Weeks
–U.S., Israeli Security Officials Meet In Washington, Discuss Iran ‘Concerns’
–Chinese Defense Minister Due In Iran Tomorrow

Reuters:

Regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia held a fifth round of “positive” talks in Baghdad last Thursday on normalising bilateral relations, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh confirmed on Monday.

Predominantly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Iran, which are locked in proxy conflicts across the Middle East, started direct talks last year to try to contain tensions.

But Iran suspended the talks in March without giving a reason after Saudi Arabia executed 81 men in its biggest mass execution in decades. Tehran condemned the executions that activists said included 41 Shi’ite Muslims.

“The fifth round of talks between Saudi Arabia and Tehran were held in Iraq and the talks were progressive and positive,” Khatibzadeh told a televised weekly news conference.

On Sunday, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein said Baghdad would host a new round of talks.

Middle East Eye:

Iran on Monday said an agreement with world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear deal was still not in sight, blaming the United States for delays.

“More than one issue is still pending between Iran and the United States,” said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh.

“Messages [from Washington] sent through [European Union coordinator Enrique] Mora these past weeks… are far from providing solutions that could lead to an accord,” he told reporters.

Tehran and Washington have been engaged in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear accord since April 2021. Iran has refused to deal directly with the US, leaving the other parties to the agreement – Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – to shuttle between them during talks in Vienna, Austria.

Mora, who coordinates the indirect negotiations, visited Tehran last month for talks with Iranian officials, and later went to Washington. At the time, Mora said he hoped to close the gaps remaining in the negotiations.

Khatibzadeh on Monday blamed Washington for delays to restore the nuclear deal.

“The United States are responsible for these delays because they are taking their time to give replies” that would be suitable for Iran, he said.

See also:
–Israel Ramping Up Pressure Amid Delayed U.S. Decision On Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
–Iran warns Israel On National Army Day

The Jerusalem Post:

Delisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list remains the only major stumbling block between the US and Iran in their efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The Times Of Israel:

The Biden administration will not remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the US terror list even though it may be a dealbreaker for Tehran signing a revived nuclear deal, an unnamed US official has told The Washington Post.

The newspaper said that Washington does not plan to accept Tehran’s demand to remove the IRGC from the US Foreign Terrorist Organizations list as a condition for restoring the 2015 agreement, even if it meant putting the signing of the deal “in jeopardy.”

“The onus is on Iran as to whether we have a nuclear deal. The [US] president will stick to core principles. The Iranians know our views,” the unnamed official told the newspaper.

The newspaper noted that earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed his belief that the IRGC was a terror group and said that he was “not overly optimistic” that a nuclear deal would be signed.

The report also noted that Washington is not walking away from negotiations, and that there was hope a compromise could still be found to allow the agreement to be signed.

See also: Iran To sell Oil, Gas In Local Currency Rather US Dollars

The Defense Post:

The United States and Iran blamed each other Monday for a weeks-long impasse that has held up a return to the 2015 deal that sought to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that the country’s negotiators would not return to Vienna, the site of the year-long talks to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), until Washington settles outstanding issues.

“We will not be going to Vienna for new negotiations but to finalize the nuclear agreement,” Khatibzadeh told reporters in Tehran.

“If Washington answers the outstanding questions, we can go to Vienna as soon as possible,” he said, without explaining the specific questions that remained.

See also: Iran Nuclear Issue ‘On Steroids’ After Ukraine War, Israeli Ex-intel Chief Says

The Times Of Israel:

Iran will only return to Vienna to finalize an agreement to revive its landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Monday.

“We will not be going to Vienna for new negotiations but to finalize the nuclear agreement,” Khatibzadeh told reporters in Tehran.

However, Iran said there were still outstanding issues that it was waiting on Washington to settle.

“At the moment, we do not yet have a definitive answer from Washington,” Khatibzadeh said. “If Washington answers the outstanding questions, we can go to Vienna as soon as possible.”

See also: Oil Climbs On Supply Concerns As Iran Talks Stall

The Washington Post:

Tehran’s demand that the United States lift its designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, and U.S. refusal so far to do that, have brought the year-long negotiations over reviving the Iran nuclear deal to a halt, with no new meetings scheduled and little obvious room for compromise.

The Dispatch:

Start with a probable assumption: The Islamic Republic will soon be able to produce a nuclear weapon whenever the supreme leader decides to do so. A new atomic accord, currently being negotiated in Vienna, won’t change the fundamental atomic fact: Biden’s deal undoubtedly will leave in place Tehran’s progress with high-speed centrifuges and a loose inspection regime that doesn’t account for, let alone eliminate, Iran’s ample stockpile of the high-tech components and maraging steel needed for the production of advanced centrifuges. Removing Iranian surpluses of highly enriched uranium by allowing its export abroad to Russia—an embarrassing destination now for the White House and the Europeans—or to China doesn’t really matter so long as advanced centrifuges can produce bomb fuel quickly. Iran’s nuclear engineers have shown that they can build high-speed, sufficiently reliable, machines rapidly. 

Barring a great, felicitous surprise, the theocracy, which has clandestinely and overtly striven at great expense to develop the bomb since the 1980s, will have its nuke. Which brings up the question of what a post-nuke Iran policy would look like—assuming those who still want America to confront the clerical regime are in power with sufficient will and means to do something more than sanctions.

See also: Without The Iran Nuclear Deal, War Is On The Horizon

ABC News:

The United States sanctioned Iranian defense companies Wednesday after a spate of ballistic missile attacks on targets in Iraq and the Gulf.

The U.S. and Iran’s neighbors blame that country for a March 13 strike on Irbil, Iraq, and for repeated missile strikes into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen.

On Friday, a Houthi missile strike set ablaze a Saudi Aramco oil storage site, prompting warnings from angry Saudi leaders that the attacks threatened the stability of the world oil market.

Even as the U.S. carries out indirect negotiations with Iran for reviving limits on Iran’s nuclear program, it will keep up penalties against those involved in Iran’s ballistic missile production, Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson said in announcing the sanctions.

CNN:

After weeks of signals from Iranian and Western officials that a deal to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement was imminent, an escalation in rhetoric between Tehran and the United States over the weekend dampened hopes for a breakthrough.

US special envoy for Iran Robert Malley told CNN’s Becky Anderson in Doha on Sunday that a nuclear deal “is not around the corner and is not inevitable” due to outstanding issues that “matter deeply” to parties involved in the talks, one of which is Tehran’s demands regarding the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Iran’s insistence on reversing the designation of the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) appeared to be the last major sticking point in talks, with neither side showing new signs of compromise.

ABC News:

Iran’s foreign minister claimed Thursday that his country is ready to reach a lasting agreement with world powers, blaming the latest failure to revive Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal on an allegedly “unrealistic vision” by the United States.

Speaking during a visit to Beirut, Hossein Amirabdollahian urged the U.S. to stop “wasting time.”

See also: Iran Nuclear Deal 2.0 Even Worse Than The First One

Axios:

An agreement to restore the 2015 nuclear deal is nearly complete, but Iran’s demand that President Biden reverse former President Trump’s decision to designate the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization is one of the last remaining sticking points.

Politico:

Bipartisan skepticism of President Joe Biden’s efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal is emerging on Capitol Hill as his administration races to put the finishing touches on a pact that was left in tatters by Donald Trump.

See also:
–U.S. Says Onus Now On Iran On Willingness To Return To Nuclear Deal – State Dept
–A New Iran Deal Leaves Us Meeker And Weaker

The Wall Street Journal:

The effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal agreement now hinges on perhaps the most politically sensitive issue in the negotiations: whether to remove the U.S. terrorism designation for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, the country’s powerful security force, diplomats said.

The issue is galvanizing opposition to the nuclear deal in Washington and among Middle East allies such as Israel, where the government issued stinging public criticism of any attempt to remove the terrorism designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Senior U.S. officials say a failure to find a compromise with Iran on the issue quickly could cause a breakdown in negotiations that—over almost a year—have resolved nearly every other disagreement.

See also:
–US Prepares To Sign Major Appeasement Deal With Iran
–Iran Escalates Shadow War With U.S., Israel In Latest Missile Attack