The United States will maintain sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards even if there is a deal to limit the country’s nuclear program, US special envoy Robert Malley said Sunday, AP reported.

Iran has insisted that a revived nuclear accord, which diplomats say is close, is conditional on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) being taken off a US terrorist list.

But Malley, the US envoy for Iran talks, told a conference in Doha: “The IRGC will remain sanctioned under US law, and our perception of the IRGC will remain.”

The Guards are on the list because of Iran’s action supporting the Syrian government, Yemen’s Huthi rebels, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

Iran has been engaged in negotiations to revive the accord with the UK, China, France, Germany and Russia directly, and the United States—indirectly since April 2021.

But Malley cautioned at the Doha Forum of political and business leaders that a deal was not “inevitable” and not “just around the corner.”