President of the United States Joe Biden seems to be increasingly determined to keep the “terrorist” designation on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which Tehran is demanding be removed before it returns to a deal on curbing its nuclear program.

“Each side is just hoping that the other would blink first,” Ali Vaez, an Iran expert from the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention think tank, told AFP.

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It is reported that negotiations opened a year ago in Vienna to revive the landmark 2015 agreement that was supposed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Under the presidency of Donald Trump, the US walked out of the agreement in 2018 and reinstated economic sanctions against Tehran, which in response, shrugged off restrictions imposed on its nuclear activities.

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The US President wants Iran to return to the agreement, provided that Iran resumes those commitments.

Despite early hopes, the talks are deadlocked and the emissaries have not been in the Austrian capital since March 11.

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Meanwhile, a draft compromise is still on the table, after resolution of most of the thorniest issues.

The fate of the Guards is the final obstacle blocking the talks: the Islamic Republic is demanding the removal of its elite ideological force from the US blacklist of “foreign terrorist organizations.”