Is delisting the IRGC back on the table?
WASHINGTON – State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday that while the US is “prepared for a return to full JCPOA implementation,” commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, it is also “prepared for broader diplomatic efforts to resolve issues outside of the JCPOA and this specific nuclear file. We’re not going to negotiate in public, but what we can say is that if Iran wants sanctions-lifting that goes beyond the JCPOA, they’ll need to address concerns of ours that go beyond the JCPOA,” Price said.
Delisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list remains the only major stumbling block between the US and Iran in their mutual efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement. The IRGC designation was not a part of the original nuclear agreement, and would require the US and Iran to agree on that separately from the JCPOA itself, which is an agreement between the Islamic Republic and the superpowers.
“This is a statement that suggests that the Biden administration will not delist the IRGC,” said Dennis Ross, distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“Ned Price’s statement gets at the Iranian position that the JCPOA deals only with the nuclear issue and obligates the Iranians on nothing else, meaning it is unrelated to their actions in the region,” said Ross, who previously served as special assistant to president Barack Obama and
National Security Council senior director for the Central Region. “The administration is saying if you want a sanction or designation lifted on a non-nuclear issue, then your behavior has to change in a non-nuclear area. Iran does not get to have it both ways, insisting it is not limited in the region and at the same time is entitled to the lifting of non-nuclear sanctions.”
Former Israeli ambassador
US not sure Iran nuclear agreement is a done deal,
the status quo on the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, by allowing Jewish prayer there. Israel insists that it is maintaining the status quo by which Jews can visit the Mount but not pray.
The violence has created a ripple effect in neighboring Jordan and in the West Bank. It has also created tensions with Israel’s other regional allies including Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is in the midst of repairing his ties with Israel, has worked to restore calm.
He spoke with President Isaac Herzog after holding calls with Jordan’s King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas this week.
“In this sensitive period, I would like to emphasize once again the necessity of not allowing provocations and threats against the status and spirituality of the Aqsa Mosque,” Erdogan said. “I repeat my call for everyone to make the utmost effort to preserve the spirituality and sanctity of this blessed place and days.”
Herzog’s office said that Erdogan “reaffirmed that contrary to false reports, the State of Israel is careful to maintain the status quo and freedom of worship, especially during this period.”
He explained that “members of all religions – Jews, Muslims, and Christians – may celebrate their holidays safely.”
In a statement to the media, Defense Minister Benny Gantz also affirmed that Israel “maintains the status quo on the Temple Mount, [and] will not allow terrorists or provocateurs to harm the holy places.”
Jordan, which has a special custodial relationship with the Temple Mount as administrators of the Wakf Islamic religious trust, was not assuaged. On Monday, it summoned Israel’s ambassador, who was out of the country. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi spoke instead with Israel’s deputy ambassador, Sami Abu Janeb.
The United Arab Emirates used its newly forged ties with Israel that are less than two years old to weigh in on the matter. Its Foreign Ministry summoned Israel’s Ambassador Amir Hayek on Tuesday.
Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem bin Ebrahim Al Hashimy told Hayek that Israel must preserve the sanctity of al-Aqsa Mosque, and “expressed concern over the escalation of tension that threatens stability and security in the region,” according to her office.
Abbas told Blinken during their call on Tuesday that Israel was violating the status quo in the Aqsa Mosque compound, both through its police action and by allowing Jewish prayer at the site.
He also asked the US to reopen its Consulate General in Jerusalem, which had served as de facto embassy to the Palestinians until the Trump administration closed it in 2019.
Abbas “stressed the importance of creating a political horizon that would lead to an end to the Israeli occupation of the land of the State of Palestine, with east Jerusalem as its capital,” according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. “The president warned that the continuation of the Israeli incursions into Palestinian cities, villages and camps, the killing of our people and other brutal attacks, will lead to dire and unbearable consequences.”
In his conversation with Safadi
and Abbas, Blinken underscored the importance of the status quo, which prohibits Jewish worship on the Temple Mount. He also spoke of the need to maintain Jordan’s special custodial role with respect to the site, the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam.
Blinken and Safadi “discussed the importance of Israelis and Palestinians working to end the cycle of violence by refraining from actions and rhetoric that further escalate tensions,” the State Department said on Tuesday.
“Secretary Blinken emphasized the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, and appreciation for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s special role as custodian of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. The secretary reaffirmed the US commitment to stability in the region and support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
In New York on Tuesday, the 15-member UN Security Council held a closed-door session called by Norway, the UAE, Ireland, France and China, but the meeting ended without any conclusion.
UNSC members Norway, France, Albania and Ireland, joined by former UNSC member see three possible scenarios: Estonia, issued a joint statement the first option is a last-minute after the meeting calling compromise, for example, if the for “calm and de-escalation” sides decide to sign the JCPOA and urged maximum restraint. first and put aside the IRGC
PA Ambassador to the UN in question for a later date. The New York Riyad Mansour called second option would see one for the immediate withdrawal of the parties completely back of Israeli police from the Aqsa down from its demands – an compound and the release of unlikely scenario. And last, that those arrested. He also called there might be no agreement. for international protection for There is another scenario in Palestinians. which instead of a “walkaway”
“We always expect from the there will be a “fadeaway” of Security Council more than the JCPOA. In this scenario, what they do,” Mansour said, there would be no official but there was unanimous support announcement about the end for the status quo, but this of negotiations, and Iran would was “not enough.” return to enrich uranium at high levels.
Implying that the international community is not prepared for such a scenario, Israel Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog made the point in his interview with The Washington Post last week that lifting sanctions from the Islamic Republic would provide Tehran with the funds for more destabilizing regional activities.
“Israel is concerned – and by the way, it’s not only Israel, also our neighbors in the region – that these funds will find their way to Iranian proxies, and we will feel it,” Herzog said. “It will destabilize the region.”
The ambassador believes that the FTO designation is not only something symbolic but rather a significant working tool that enables pushing criminal charges against entities that to the US Michael Oren said that he was “guardedly optimistic” about the remarks.
“It seems to indicate that the United States is willing to delist the IRGC, but only on the condition that Iran is willing to stop all of its malign activities in the Middle East and beyond,” said Oren. “So in a certain way it could be calling Iran’s bluff: ‘Oh, you want to talk about the IRGC? That’s something that’s not related to Iran’s nuclear program. Okay. Well, let’s talk about everything, i.e., Iran’s support for terror and the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles’.”
Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he does not believe the Biden administration has ever taken the IRGC delisting off the table.
“It’s been an ongoing negotiation all along,” he said. “There shouldn’t be any terrorism sanctions relief for Iran whatsoever without Iran halting its sponsorship of terrorism. But the Biden administration has already offered to lift terrorism sanctions on key financiers of the IRGC Quds Force, including the Central Bank of Iran and the National Iranian Oil Company, without any halt to the financing of terrorism. No one should be surprised if the administration removes the IRGC from the FTO list in exchange for platitudes on ‘regional de-escalation’.”
As negotiations between the sides have been stalled for weeks, Washington experts