US President Joe Biden believes Iran’s Quds Force is a terrorist organization, a State Department official said Friday.
The latest remarks come after the top US military general, Gen. Mark Milley, said earlier this week that he did not support removing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) from the US terror blacklist and voiced his belief that the Quds Force was a terror group.
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“I’d say that the President shares the chairman’s [Gen. Milley] view that IRGC-Quds Forces are terrorists, and beyond that, we aren’t going to comment on… topics in the nuclear talks,” Deputy State Department Spokesperson Jalina Porter said.
Iran is demanding that the US remove the IRGC’s terror designation as part of a new nuclear deal, which the Biden administration has been adamant on reaching.
Speaking to lawmakers this week, Gen. Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were asked about their personal views on whether the IRGC was a terror group or not.
Austin refused to comment and Gen. Milley made his opinion heard. Although Milley was asked about the IRGC, he said the IRGC-Quds Force was a terrorist organization.
It is unclear whether he made the distinction on purpose or whether the US is considering removing the IRGC and leaving the IRGC-Quds Force designated.
Asked by Al Arabiya English for updates on the nuclear deal talks in Vienna, Porter said there were no updates.
But she added that an agreement was “neither imminent nor certain at this time.”
