Hundreds of Iranian-American Experts Request: IRGC Should Not Be Removed from Terrorist List
More than five hundred Iranian-American experts have asked Joe Biden to keep the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the list of terrorist groups.
These individuals, whom the Washington Times introduced as “Iranian-American scientists, researchers and industrial managers” in America, made this request in a letter to Biden on Tuesday, April 23.
Addressing the American president, they wrote that removing the IRGC from the list of foreign terrorist organizations “contradicts the wishes and interests of the Iranian people” and “will be a direct threat to the advancement of democracy.”
The signatories of this letter added that “the IRGC is an instrument of terrorism abroad and suppression of people on the streets of Iran, protects theocratic dictatorship in Iran, and continues to prevent the improvement of human rights conditions in Iran.”
The Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization also stated on Tuesday, April 23, regarding this news that many of the signatories of this letter are members and supporters of this organization.
The request to remove the IRGC from terrorist lists has faced serious and open opposition from Israel, and in America as well, opposition is increasing.
On Monday, April 22, 14 Republican senators in Congress warned the Biden administration about the consequences of potentially removing the IRGC from America’s list of terrorist groups.
Calling this potential removal “incorrect,” they stressed that the IRGC “has shown no meaningful change in its conduct.”
Reports indicate that the Iranian government has insisted on the removal of the IRGC from the American terrorist list as a condition for the agreement, and in return, the American government says removing the IRGC is conditional upon Iran providing a public commitment not to attack American forces and closing the file on Qasem Soleimani’s assassination.
The Islamic Republic’s request to remove the IRGC’s name from the American terrorist list is reported to be one of the main reasons for the stall in the year-long Vienna negotiations.
The West and Iran have been negotiating for months to revive the nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA, but despite statements by officials from both sides that reaching an agreement is “close,” this has yet to materialize.
Donald Trump, the former American president, withdrew from this agreement in 2018 and reapplied sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, which had been lifted as part of the Obama-era agreement.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, expressing satisfaction with “resistance” against what he called the other side’s “greed” in nuclear negotiations, called for the continuation of this process.
Source: Radio Farda
