By John Irish and Michel Rose<\/p>\n
PARIS, Jan 28 (Reuters) – The European Union is poised to include Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on its list of terrorist organisations after France said \u200bon Wednesday it would now support the move.<\/p>\n
EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Thursday and \u200cwere due to sign off on new sanctions in response to a crackdown on protests that has seen thousands killed and thousands more \u200carrested.<\/p>\n
“France will support the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the European Union’s list of terrorist organisations,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X.<\/p>\n
With France, Italy and Germany now on board, the decision is likely to be approved politically on Thursday, although it does need unanimity among the bloc’s 27 members.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, \u2060France had been hesitant to back \u200cthe majority in the bloc, who have pushed to add the IRGC to the EU’s terrorist organisation list, joining the United States.<\/p>\n
“The unbearable repression of the peaceful uprising \u200dof the Iranian people cannot go unanswered. The extraordinary courage they have shown in the face of the blind violence unleashed upon them cannot be in vain,” Barrot said.<\/p>\n
The French presidency had earlier announced the decision.<\/p>\n
Set up after Iran’s 1979 \u200bIslamic Revolution to protect the Shi’ite clerical ruling system, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has great sway \u200cin the country, controlling swathes of the economy and armed forces, and was put in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes.<\/p>\n
CUTTING TIES, FEARS FOR CITIZENS IN IRAN<\/p>\n
While some EU member states have previously pushed for the IRGC to be added to the EU’s terrorist list, others, led by France, have been more cautious.<\/p>\n
They feared such a move could lead to a complete break in ties with Iran, impacting diplomatic missions, \u2060and also hurting negotiations to release European citizens held in \u200bIranian prisons.<\/p>\n
Paris has been especially worried about the fate of two \u200bof its citizens currently living at the embassy in Tehran after being released from prison last year.<\/p>\n
Anti-government protests that swept across Iran since December have triggered the bloodiest crackdown \u200dby authorities since the 1979 \u2060Islamic Revolution, drawing international condemnation.<\/p>\n
Other diplomats backing the move said the magnitude of the crackdown meant Europe had to send a very strong political signal given the IRGC’s role in the clampdown, but \u2060also its activities overseas, which they said was tantamount to terrorist activity.<\/p>\n
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a \u200cduck then it\u2019s probably a duck and it\u2019s good to call that out,” said one \u200csenior EU diplomat.<\/p>\n
(Editing by Toby Chopra and Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By John Irish and Michel Rose PARIS, Jan 28 (Reuters) – The European Union is poised to include…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[216409,2000,299,1699,36,774,216407,216406,83211,216408],"class_list":{"0":"post-727054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-27-members","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-islamic-revolution","15":"tag-list-of-terrorist-organisations","16":"tag-revolutionary-guard","17":"tag-terrorist-list"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115974596346549287","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}