Republican member of the US House of Representatives Mike McCall and 20 Republican lawmakers presented a bill that would prevent President Joe Biden's administration from lifting or easing sanctions on Iran before Congress reviews and oversees them.

McCall confirmed in a statement that the Biden administration had already begun making concessions to Tehran, in an attempt to start negotiations with it.

He added that Congress should work proactively to review President Biden's efforts to restore relations with the Iranian regime by easing sanctions, noting that the Iranian regime continues to escalate its escalation through missile strikes, militants and other forms of aggression in the Middle East, according to the statement.

It is noteworthy that a copy similar to the law submitted by Republican members of the Senate last month for discussion.

The 140 American deputies from both parties, the Democrat and the Republican, had called on President Biden's administration to seek to complete a comprehensive deal with Iran.

The message of American representatives calls for an agreement to re-impose restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and limit its ballistic missile program, and the letter calls for addressing what they described as Iran's malign behavior in the Middle East region.

Lawmakers from both parties called on the Biden administration to deal with Tehran "through diplomatic mechanisms and sanctions, until it recedes its malign behavior."

At the same time, the letter stated that restrictions imposed on Iran's nuclear program should be extended, to prove that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

US sanctions

Meanwhile, the United States imposed sanctions on two Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials, in the first measure of its kind during the Biden administration.

On Tuesday, the US State Department said in a statement that two officials of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were included in the sanctions list for their involvement in human rights violations, including attacks on detainees during protests that took place in 2019 and 2020.

In the statement, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that Ali Hattian and Masoud Safdari, who belong to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and all their family members, are currently banned from entering the United States.

Blinken added that his country will continue to discuss all possible tools to make those responsible for human rights violations in Iran pay the price, as he put it.

This measure, which the French Press Agency described as secondary, comes in light of an ongoing debate between Washington and Tehran regarding the return to the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the 5 + 1 group (America, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China).

Rabiei said that the only solution to revive the nuclear deal is to lift the sanctions on his country (Anadolu Agency)

Continuous sparring

On Tuesday, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei confirmed at a press conference in Tehran that if Washington took the decision to return to the agreement, his country would backtrack on steps to quickly reduce its nuclear commitments.

Rabiei said that the United States has no choice but to abide by the nuclear agreement, and that it should return to it without any preconditions.

He described the Biden administration's policy towards Iran as wrong, and indicated that his country's policy on the nuclear deal has not changed, considering that the only solution to revive the nuclear deal is the lifting of sanctions.

For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that his country alone has implemented the joint comprehensive action plan concluded by the group of three European countries (Britain, France and Germany), the United States and Iran.

Zarif added - in a tweet on Twitter - that the United States and the group of European countries must fulfill their obligations, saying that if they did so, Iran would respond in kind, as he put it.

Washington had announced its acceptance of the European Union’s invitation to hold direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program, but the latter stresses that before entering into any such talks, US sanctions must be lifted or eased.

German position

For his part, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that preserving the nuclear agreement is crucial not only to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but also to adopt the agreement as a basis for building on it as well.

All these developments come as Russia called on Tuesday for the simultaneous return of Washington and Tehran to the Iran nuclear deal

On another issue, US State Department spokesman Ned Price called on Iran to release the Americans it had arrested.

In statements during his regular meeting with the media, Price added that Washington will seek to use direct channels of communication with Iran to pressure it to secure the release of American detainees, and that this issue reflects the need for this diplomacy, as he put it.