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by Sharon Wrobel
Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) march during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran on Sep. 22, 2010. Photo: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl/File photo
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday that Israel is “very concerned” about the United States’ intention to accede to Iran’s “outrageous” demand to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations, as part of a side deal to clinch a nuclear agreement.
“Unfortunately, there is still determination to sign the nuclear deal with Iran at almost any cost — including saying that the world’s largest terrorist organization is not a terrorist organization,” Bennett said at a Sunday cabinet meeting. “This is too high a price.”
The comments follow media reports of US willingness to delist the IRGC — which Washington blacklisted in April 2019 for supporting terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Bahrain, and the Gulf region — in exchange for a public commitment from Iran of de-escalation in the region. The discussions come as the US and world powers seek to wrap up indirect talks with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement that imposed temporary restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.
In response to media reports, the US State Department said no decision had been made on the IRGC designation and “any speculation to the contrary is simply uninformed.”
Bennett on Sunday called the IRGC the “largest and most murderous terrorist organization in the world,” which poses a threat to all US allies in the Middle East.
“In recent years, they have fired missiles at peaceful countries and launched UAVs at Israel and other countries,” he said. “Even now, the IRGC terrorist organization is trying to murder certain Israelis and Americans around the world.”
In a joint statement, Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Friday that they “refuse to believe” that the US would delist the IRGC from the terrorist list.
“The IRGC are responsible for attacks on American civilians and American forces throughout the Middle East, including in the past year. The IRGC were behind plans to assassinate senior American government officials,” their statement read. “We believe that the US will not abandon its closest allies in exchange for empty promises from terrorists.”
