Iran threatened Thursday to unleash “hazardous consequences” after the European Union formally designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, amid escalating tensions between Tehran and Western powers.
EU overseas ministers authorized the designation at a assembly in Brussels, describing it as a response to Iran’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests.
“Repression cannot go unanswered,” EU overseas coverage chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X in saying the choice. “Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise.”
The designation locations the IRGC on the identical terrorist listing as al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic State group, Kallas stated. “If you act as a terrorist, you should also be treated as a terrorist.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen shared the sentiment. “‘Terrorist’ is indeed how you call a regime that crushes its own people’s protests in blood,” she stated.
In a assertion carried by Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the General Staff of the Iranian armed forces referred to as the EU’s determination “illogical, irresponsible and spiteful,” accusing European leaders of appearing in obedience to U.S. and Israeli insurance policies.
The assertion claimed the IRGC has performed a central function in combating extremist teams, together with the Islamic State, and warned that “hazardous consequences of this hostile and provocative decision will fall directly on the European policymakers.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused European governments of escalating tensions and rising the chance of a wider Middle East warfare.
“Europe is instead busy fanning the flames,” Araghchi wrote on X. Several international locations are working to avert all-out warfare within the area, however European states aren’t amongst them, he argued.
He described the IRGC designation as a “major strategic mistake” made on the behest of the United States and warned that Europe would undergo extreme penalties if battle erupts, together with a surge in power costs.
Formed in 1979 within the aftermath of Iran’s Islamic revolution, the IRGC operates individually from the remainder of the Iranian armed forces and has its personal military, navy, air pressure, intelligence and particular forces branches. Its function is to protect the Islamic Republic, and it stories on to Iran’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The IRGC is estimated to subject between 150,000 and 190,000 troops, together with an elite expeditionary unit recognized as the Quds Force that was individually designated by the United States as a terrorist organization in 2007.
In addition, an IRGC department referred to as the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia, has an estimated 450,000 members, in response to the US-based Institute for the Study of War, and performs a key function in suppressing anti-government protests.
The Revolutionary Guard was beforehand designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the United States in 2019 throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period. The US at the moment blamed Iran for the deaths of 608 American service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011 by the hands of what it referred to as the “IRGC’s proxies.”
Against the backdrop of US threats to strike Iran for the second time since June, Tehran has introduced a vital growth of its military capabilities. Iran claimed it has added 1,000 “strategic drones” to its navy stockpile, IRNA reported Thursday, although it stays unclear what sorts of drones had been added.
The nation additionally introduced that IRGC naval forces will perform live-fire workouts subsequent week within the Strait of Hormuz, a slender waterway via which greater than a fifth of the world’s oil and huge share of liquefied pure fuel move.
Analysts say the EU’s terrorist designation of the IRGC is basically symbolic. “This measure will have very little impact,” Trita Parsi, govt vice chairman of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, advised NCS. “Europe already has almost no trade with Iran. It was not about to have more trade. It was not about to be a mediator.”
Parsi famous that related measures have failed to change Iranian conduct, stating that the United States has lengthy listed the IRGC as a terrorist organization, but “here we are on the verge of war.”
The designation comes amid heightened regional tensions and renewed warnings from Washington. Trump has threatened to strike Iran if it doesn’t signal what he has referred to as an “equitable” nuclear deal.
Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref stated his nation ought to “be prepared for a state of war,” in response to IRNA, including that “if it is imposed upon us, we will defend ourselves, and the end of the war will not be with the enemies.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth underscored that military options stay firmly on the desk if diplomacy fails.
“When President Trump said we’re not getting a nuclear Iran, you won’t have a nuclear bomb, he meant it,” Hegseth stated throughout a Cabinet assembly Thursday. “We will be prepared to deliver whatever this president expects of the War Department,” he added.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday urged the events to interact in diplomacy to de-escalate the tensions and “avoid a crisis that could have devastating consequences in the region.”