Envoy Rejects ‘Fabricated’ Accusations by British MPs

Date: 18 February 2023 - 21:46

News ID: ۱۱۲۵۳۴

LONDON (Dispatches) -- Iran’s chargé d’affaires to the UK has reacted to a recently-published article in The Telegraph, rejecting accusations leveled against Iran in the daily as “baseless and fabricated”.
In a series of tweets, Mehdi Husseini Matin rejected comments by British MPs Stephen Crabb and Steve McCabe, who are respectively the chairmen of Friends of Israel parliamentary groups in the Conservative and Labour parties.
Titled “Iranian terror is a clear and present danger to the UK,” the article was published online on February 12, leveled accusations particularly against the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
The article is “full of false, baseless & fabricated accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Husseini Matin wrote.
The IRGC is “the only organization that fought against terrorism in the region; in circumstances that the danger was so close to Europe and no one dared to stand against it,” the envoy said, stressing, “The IRGC still is the main fighter in combating terrorism in the region.”
The British lawmakers had called for blacklisting the IRGC amid efforts by the U.S. and Israeli lobbies to proscribe the official Iranian military force as a “terrorist organization.”
Early in February, The Times reported that the UK government had stopped plans to blacklist the IRGC, citing the Foreign Office’s fears that the move would block the communications channels with Iran.

Citing sources in the government, the report said there were also concerns about how to blacklist the IRGC because, unlike other proscribed bodies, the Iranian force is an official government agency.

“Foreign Office officials have real concerns about proscription because they want to maintain access. The Home Office, and the government more broadly, supports the move. The IRGC should have been proscribed by now but the whole process is on ice,” a Whitehall source said then.

Less than two weeks earlier, the European Union also opted not to blacklist IRGC, despite calls to do so from the European Parliament.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on January 23 that the block could not list the IRGC as a “terrorist” entity without an EU court decision.

Tehran, meanwhile, strongly slammed the efforts, noting that the IRGC is an official government body of the Islamic Republic of Iran and hence such a move is in contravention of international laws and principles.

Elsewhere, the Iranian diplomat rejected claims of Iran’s drone delivery to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.

“On the accusation of selling Drones to Russia, Iran has asked time & again from Ukrainians to bring their evidence in a direct negotiation format in a third country and still stands for that. But no answer comes from the Ukrainians,” he said.

“Iran is not a means for Ukraine for [drawing] more support from allies,” the envoy stressed.

Both Tehran and Moscow have consistently denied the accusations, with Iranian officials saying that Kyiv has so far failed to provide any evidence for its claim.