Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Saturday that lifting US sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is one of Tehran’s main demands in nuclear talks with world powers.

Amir-Abdollahian told state television that lifting US sanctions against the IRGC is “one of our primary subjects in the negotiations.”

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is one of the country’s most important institutions… One of our key concerns is the removal of sanctions against the IRGC, he stated.

For almost a year, talks in Vienna have been taking place between the accord’s remaining signatories — Iran, Russia, China, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – in the hopes of reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.

Due to Tehran’s refusal to deal directly with Washington, the US is participating in the discussions in an indirect manner.

One of the few remaining unresolved topics in the talks is the removal of the IRGC from the US’ foreign terrorist organization blacklist.

According to Axios, which cited Israeli and US sources, Washington has offered to rescind the terrorist classification in exchange for a public promise from Iran to de-escalate the situation in the region.

Under former President Donald Trump’s administration, the IRGC was branded as a foreign terrorist organization in 2019.

In 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the nuclear deal and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, claiming that the agreement failed to address Iran’s ballistic missile program and regional operations and did not prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons.

Iran responded by expanding its nuclear program, breaking most of the deal’s constraints. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful reasons solely.

The Vienna discussions, which began in April 2021, are aimed at bringing Iran back into compliance with the deal and making it easier for the US to rejoin it. Iran was granted respite from sanctions in exchange for limits on its nuclear program.