The European Union has agreed to add Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to its list of terrorist organizations, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Thursday.
Set up after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shi'ite clerical ruling system, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has great sway in the country, controlling swathes of the economy and armed forces, and was put in charge of Iran's ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, said that foreign ministers unanimously agreed on the designation. "Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise," she said.
"This will put them on the same footing with al-Qaida, Hamas, Daesh," Kallas said earlier Thursday. "If you act as a terrorist, you should also be treated as a terrorist."
The 27-nation bloc on Thursday also sanctioned 15 Iranian officials, including top commanders of the Revolutionary Guard, over the violent crackdown on protesters. Activists say the crackdown has seen at least 6,373 people killed.
The measures, while largely symbolic, add to international pressures on the Islamic Republic, which faces a threat of military action from U.S. President Donald Trump in response to the killing of peaceful demonstrators and over possible mass executions. The American military has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers into the Mideast. It remains unclear whether Trump will decide to use force.
For its part, Iran has said it could launch a pre-emptive strike or broadly target the Mideast, including American military bases in the region and Israel. Iran issued a warning to ships at sea Thursday that it planned to run a drill next week that would include live firing in the Strait of Hormuz, potentially disrupting traffic through a waterway that sees 20% of all the world's oil pass through it.
Iran had no immediate comment, but it has criticized Europe in recent days as it considered the move. Other countries, including the U.S. and Canada, have designated the Guard as a terrorist organization.
France had objected to listing the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization over fears it would endanger French citizens detained in Iran, as well as diplomatic missions. However, it later signaled that it backed the move.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Thursday before the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels that France supports more sanctions in Iran and the listing "because there can be no impunity for the crimes committed."
"In Iran, the unbearable repression that has engulfed the peaceful revolt of the Iranian people cannot go unanswered," he said.
Kristina Kausch, a deputy director at the German Marshall Fund, said the listing is "a symbolic act" showing that for the EU "the dialogue path hasn't led anywhere and now it's about isolation and containment as a priority."
"The designation of a state military arm, of an official pillar of the Iranian state as a terrorist organization is one step short of cutting diplomatic ties," she said. "But they haven't cut diplomatic ties and they won't."
The EU on Thursday also sanctioned six organizations in Iran, including those involved in monitoring online content, as the country remains gripped by a three-week internet blackout by authorities.
