WASHINGTON – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said on Thursday that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should not be removed from the Foreign Terrorist Organization List.
During a hearing on the 2023 President’s Budget request before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) asked Milley and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for their personal opinion on the matter.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley: "So in my personal opinion, I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terrorist organization and I do not support them being delisted from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list." pic.twitter.com/5z8RqLuoaS
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) April 7, 2022
Austin said he wouldn’t comment “on negotiations that are ongoing and speculate on what my advice to the president is going to be.”
However, Milley responded, “In my personal opinion, I believe the IRGC Quds Force to be a terror organization and I do not support them being delisted from the Foreign Terrorist Organization List.”
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was not “overly optimistic” at the prospects of bringing the nuclear agreement with Iran to a conclusion. In an interview with MSNBC he said, “Despite all the efforts we put into it, we’re not there and time is getting extremely short, but this is something that we will be talking to our European partners about this afternoon and on the next day.”
He added, “I continue to believe that it would be in the best interest of our country if we can back into compliance with the deal if Iran would do the same. We are not there.”
Asked whether the IRGC is a terrorist organization, Blinken answered, “They are.”