Iran has declared European nations’ armies a “terrorist group”, the speaker of its parliament said Sunday, following the EU’s decision to apply the same designation to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iranian parliamentarians wearing IRGC uniforms chant “Death to America” during a session in Tehran. (AFP)Lawmakers wore green uniforms of the Guards in a show of solidarity during the legislative session, where they chanted “death to America”, “death to Israel” and “shame on you, Europe”, state television footage showed.
Condemning the bloc’s “irresponsible actions”, Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that “under Article 7 of the Law on Countermeasures against the Declaration of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, the armies of European countries are considered a terrorist group”.
It is not clear what the immediate impact of the decision will be.
The law was first passed in 2019, when the United States classified the Guards as a terrorist organization.
Sunday’s session was held on the 47th anniversary of the return from exile of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic in 1979.
The Guards are the ideological force of the Iranian military, tasked with protecting the Islamic Revolution from external and internal threats.
Western governments have accused them of cracking down on recent protest movements that have left thousands dead.
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Tehran blamed the violence on “terrorist acts” fomented by the US and Israel.
The European Union agreed to list the organization as a “terrorist organization” in response to the protests on Thursday.
The move is in line with similar classifications made by the United States, Canada and Australia.
“This decision was taken at the behest of the American president and the leaders of the Zionist regime, accelerating Europe’s path to irrelevance in the future world order,” Ghalibaf said.
The move, he added, only increased internal support for the Guards.
Threats and dialogue The legislative session came as Iran and the United States traded warnings and threats of possible military action.
Tehran’s response to the protests prompted US President Donald Trump to threaten intervention by sending an aircraft carrier group to the region.
In recent days, however, both sides have insisted they are willing to talk.
Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Saturday that “contrary to the media propaganda of fictional war, structural arrangements for negotiations are moving forward.”
Trump later confirmed that dialogue was taking place, but without retracting his earlier threat. He told Fox News that Iran “is talking to us, and we’ll see if we can do something, otherwise we’ll see what happens… we have a big fleet going there”.
Trump has previously said he believes Iran will strike a deal on its nuclear and missile programs without facing US military action.
Meanwhile, Tehran has said it is open to nuclear talks if its missile and defense capabilities are not on the agenda.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday that “a war would not be in the interests of Iran, the United States or the region,” during a call with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, according to Pezeshkian’s office.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al, who also serves as foreign minister, held talks in Iran on Saturday to try to “defuse tensions”, the kingdom’s foreign ministry said.
Ferozeh, a 43-year-old domestic worker who declined to give her full name, said the recent tensions had left her “very worried and scared”.
“Lately, I just watch the news until I fall asleep. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night to check updates.”
