GENEVA: Iran will take reciprocal action against the United States if Washington designates the elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as terrorists, a majority of Iranian parliamentarians said on Sunday, according to state news agency IRNA.
The United States is expected to designate the Revolutionary Guards a foreign terrorist organization, three US officials told Reuters, marking the first time Washington has formally labelled another country’s military a terrorist group.
“We will answer any action taken against this force with a reciprocal action,” a statement issued by 255 out of the 290 Iranian lawmakers said, according to IRNA.
“So the leaders of America, who themselves are the creators and supporters of terrorists in the (Middle East) region, will regret this inappropriate and idiotic action.”
The US decision, which critics warn could open US military and intelligence officials to similar actions by unfriendly governments abroad, is expected to be announced by the State Department perhaps as early as Monday, the US officials said last week. The move has been rumored for years.
IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari warned in 2017 that if Trump went ahead with the move, “then the Revolutionary Guards will consider the American army to be like Islamic State all around the world.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a strident Iran hawk, has advocated the change in US policy as part of the Trump administration’s tough posture toward Tehran.
Set up after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shiite clerical ruling system, the IRGC is Iran’s most powerful security organization. It controls large sectors of the Iranian economy and has huge influence in its political system.
Iran will retaliate in kind if US designates Guards as terrorists
Iran will retaliate in kind if US designates Guards as terrorists
- US officials told Reuters their country plans to list Iranian army as a terrorist group
- This would be the first time a state would formally list the national army of another state as a terrorist group
Iran offers concessions on nuclear program
- Atomic energy chief says it will dilute enriched uranium if US eases sanctions
TEHRAN: Iran offered on Monday to dilute its highly enriched uranium if the US lifts sanctions.
Mohammad Eslami, head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization, did not specify whether this included all sanctions on Iran or only those imposed by the US.
The new move follows talks on the issue in Oman last week that both sides described as positive and constructive.
Diluting uranium means mixing it with blend material to reduce the enrichment level, so that the final product does not exceed a given enrichment threshold.
Before US and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities in June last year, Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 percent, far exceeding the 3.67 percent limit allowed under the now-defunct nuclear agreement with world powers in 2015.
According to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Iran is the only state without nuclear weapons that is enriching uranium to 60 percent.
The whereabouts of more than 400 kg of highly enriched uranium that Iran possessed before the war is also unknown. UN inspectors last recorded its location on June 10. Such a stockpile could allow Iran to build more than nine nuclear bombs if enrichment reached 90 percent.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Iranians on Monday to resist foreign pressure.
“National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and resolve of the people,” Khamenei said. “Show it again and frustrate the enemy.”
Nevertheless, despite this defiance, Iran has signaled it could come to some kind of deal to dial back its nuclear program and avoid further conflict with Washington.
