Withdrawal From NPT Not Ruled Out

Iran to Put European Armies on Terror List

Date: 22 January 2023 - 20:54

News ID: ۱۱۱۶۴۴

TEHRAN – Iran on Sunday warned the European Union it would take “reciprocal” measures after the European Parliament voted to list the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group.
“The parliament is working to place elements of European countries’ armies on the terrorist list” of the Islamic Republic, Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian said on Twitter.
Members of the European Parliament voted on Wednesday to include the IRGC on the 27-nation bloc’s terror list. The vote is non-binding but comes with EU foreign ministers already due to discuss tightening sanctions on Iran next week.
Amir-Abdollahian and IRGC chief Major General Hussein Salami attended a closed-door parliament session on Sunday morning to discuss the European Parliament’s move.
“The European Parliament shot itself in the foot,” Iran’s top diplomat said, adding that the response would be “reciprocal”.
Later asked if Iran would consider withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or expel United Nations nuclear inspectors, Amir-Abdollahian said all options were on the table.
If European diplomats “who have no experience in diplomacy... do not correct their positions, every possibility is conceivable”, he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Iran has been a signatory to the NPT since 1970, the year it came into force. Its nuclear energy program was a target of West’s hostile policies toward the Islamic Republic until a deal was reached in 2015, providing Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear activity.
But the deal has been hanging by a thread since 2018 when the United States unilaterally withdrew and reimposed biting sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin rolling back on its commitments.
Iran and world powers have been engaged in on-and-off talks to restore the deal, but discussions have been in deep freeze since last year.
Iran’s parliament speaker Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf also said on Sunday that the legislature would “retaliate immediately and decisively” if the EU upholds and ratifies the European Parliament’s vote.
Qalibaf, who is himself a former commander of the IRGC air force, added that parliament would “recognize the armies of the European countries... as terrorist groups”.
He said the latest resolution showed that European countries, under the influence of pro-Zionist lobby groups, have made miscalculations and taken a wrong path against their national interests.
The top Iranian lawmaker went on to say that Iranians consider the IRGC an integral part of their nation, which has protected their security and served people during tough times such as natural calamities and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The IRGC is the most unique anti-terror force in the world, which routed the Daesh terrorist group with the help of regional nations and despite the U.S. support for the group. The IRGC eliminated global threats of Daesh,” Qalibaf said, emphasizing that the IRGC has made great sacrifices in its fight against terror.

Iran’s intelligence minister of Iran stressed his ministry’s full support for the IRGC, denouncing the European Parliament’s “worthless, hasty and ill-advised” blacklisting.

Ismail Khatib said Iran reserves the legitimate and inalienable right to take retaliatory action against any move violating the Islamic Republic’s national security.

He said the Western governments’ weak intelligence evaluation and improper knowledge of the Iranian people and the logic of administration in Iran have made them resort to such worthless symbolic measures in order to provide artificial respiration for the failed and foreign-orchestrated project on creating chaos and riots in the country.

The European Union has turned into a puppet of the U.S. state-sponsored terrorism, the Zionist regime, and the despicable anti-Iranian groups, Khatib stated, warning that the Western interfering plots against Iran as well as their regional policies will end in total failure.

The United States, known for sponsoring terrorist groups, has already placed both the IRGC and its foreign arm, the Quds Force, on its list of “foreign terrorist organizations”.

Gen. Salami on Saturday praised sacrifices made by the IRGC, particularly the Quds Force and its late commander General Qassem Soleimani, saying the top anti-terror icon “played the biggest and most leading role in eliminating worldwide terrorism”.

“As for the IRGC’s endeavors, especially the Quds Force and the leadership of Martyr Soleimani, the volcano of terrorism created by the Americans would have engulfed the Europeans and the security that prevails in Europe today would have been destroyed,” the IRGC chief said.

“The fire was reaching the edge of Europe and had it not been contained, it would have covered all the geographical spheres of Europe. But the Europeans and Americans are accustomed to replacing the executioner with the martyr, and the oppressor with the oppressed,” he added.