The top US general said on Thursday that he does not support removing Iran's Quds Force, an arm of its Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), from a list of foreign terrorist organizations.
"I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terrorist organization and I do not support them being delisted," Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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The United States has been considering removing the IRGC from its foreign terrorist organization blacklist in return for Iranian assurances about reining in the elite force. The guards' Quds Froce is tasked with exporting Iran's ideology in the region. Its former commander, Qassem Soleimani, was assassinated in 2019 in response to attacks on US forces.
In March, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett urged the United States to heed calls against any removal of the IRGC from the State Department blacklist after reports emerged that the Biden administration was likely to do so in exchange for an Iranian pledge to avoid aggressive actions in the region.
"We're concerned about the intention to delist the IRGC," Bennett told visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken when he visited Israel. "I hope the United States will hear the concerned voices from the region, Israel's and others, on this very important issue."
The IRGC is the most powerful faction in Iran. Loyal solely to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Revolutionary Guards controls a business empire as well as elite armed and intelligence forces, including the infamous Quds Force – the IRGC's extra-territorial black ops arm. In April 2019, then-US President Donald Trump designated the Revolutionary Guards as a "foreign terrorist organization" as part of efforts to increase international pressure on the Islamic republic.
A reversal of that decision is reportedly an Iranian last-minute demand in the stalled nuclear talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the 2015 deal between Tehran and the West.
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