The European Union wants to do its part to reinforce pressure against the Iranian regime. While the president of the United States, Donald Trump, threatened again on Wednesday with a military attack on that country – after mobilizing a powerful force near the Persian Gulf – the Twenty-Seven agreed this Thursday in Brussels to include the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on their blacklist of terrorist organizations, a step that has taken years to take, fearing that it could definitively close the path of dialogue with Tehran.
“Repression cannot go unanswered,” explained the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Kaja Kallas, after the community foreign ministers closed a political agreement to designate the parallel army of the Ayatollahs as a terrorist organization, something that should become effective in the coming weeks, according to diplomatic sources.
The situation in Iran, with thousands dead in protests in recent weeks, was at the top of the agenda at the first Foreign Affairs Council of the year. “Seeing the death toll in the protests and the actions of the regime, [con estas nuevas sanciones] that repressing the people has a price and that you will be punished for it,” Kallas had stressed upon his arrival at the meeting. “Any regime that kills thousands of its own citizens is working towards its own disappearance,” he added after the ministers’ decision.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is a parallel army whose task is to protect the Islamic regime. Including it on the EU list of terrorist organizations will have little practical effect, since many of its members, and the entity itself, are already included on other sanctions lists for other reasons. It already appears, for example, in the list of individuals and entities responsible for human rights violations, which prevents its members from entering European territory and also means the freezing of their assets; It is also among the groups sanctioned for helping Russia in its war against Ukraine.
However, this Thursday’s step – about which, until this Wednesday, several capitals still expressed doubts – against the Tehran regime. The measure will put the Iranian Revolutionary Guard “at the same level as Al Qaeda, Hamas or Daesh,” Kallas recalled. “If you act like a terrorist, you should be treated like a terrorist,” he concluded.
Until almost the day before this meeting of foreign ministers, doubts reigned over whether the Twenty-Seven would achieve the unanimity required to take the step that represents a slap in the face to the Iranian regime. Tehran has warned of “devastating consequences” for the EU if Brussels punishes its military wing, considered responsible for orchestrating. There are already more than 6,000 deaths, according to the Iranian NGO in exile HRANA, which is investigating another possible 17,000 fatalities. The Islamic Republic of Iran itself acknowledges more than 3,117 deaths, which it attributes to the action of “terrorists” infiltrating the demonstrations.
While Germany pressed to include the Revolutionary Guard on the list, other countries warned of the possible consequences it could have in terms of breaking the last spaces for dialogue with the Iranian Government. Kallas, however, has assured that the risks have been “calculated” carefully: “We estimate that diplomatic channels will remain open even after the inclusion of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization,” he indicated.
The tables began to turn when two of the countries that raised the most doubts, France and Spain, made it clear on Wednesday that they would support the measure, something that their Foreign Ministers also confirmed upon their arrival in Brussels.
“Spain supports all actions against Iran at this time and, of course, those that refer to its inclusion in the list of terrorist groups of the Revolutionary Guard,” declared the head of Spanish diplomacy, José Manuel Albares.
Given the “blind and indiscriminate repression” against the population, it is a “responsibility and obligation of the EU to make use of all the instruments it has” to support the Iranian people in their demands for a greater “margin of freedom,” Albares indicated. For Spain, he stressed, “any execution” of protesters “would be a real red line.”
“France will support the inclusion of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps on the European list of terrorist organizations,” its French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, had also announced last night in a message on the social network “gives the Iranian people the right to decide their future for themselves.”
The EU has also expanded the list of Iranian officials sanctioned for human rights violations, which included this Thursday the Minister of the Interior and head of the National Security Council, Eskandar Momeni, as well as several senior members of the Iranian judiciary, members of Revolutionary Guard commanders and police officers.
Those identified, 15 in total, “were involved in the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations and the arrest of political activists and human rights defenders,” the Council said in a statement. With their inclusion on the blacklist, as well as several Iranian entities responsible for Internet censorship, the number of Iranian individuals sanctioned for human rights violations rises to 247, to which 50 entities are added.
Four other individuals and six entities have entered the European sanctions regime for Iran’s military support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and for armed groups and entities in the Middle East and Red Sea region.
The Twenty-seven have also approved the Commission’s proposal to extend the ban on the export, sale, transfer or supply from the EU to Iran of components and technologies used in the development and production of drones and missiles, which will now extend, among others, sensors and lasers, navigation equipment and aerospace propulsion. Brussels had presented the proposal last week, claiming that it will serve to “further limit” Iran’s ability to “fuel Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine.”
