Iran to Show Crushing Response If US Declares IRGC Terror Group: Spokesman
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi warned that if Washington decides to declare the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization, Tehran would make a “firm and crushing” response.
Speaking to reporters at his weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday, Qassemi hailed recent remarks made by IRGC Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, who cautioned the US government of the dire consequences of imposing new sanctions against Iran and designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
“I hope that the US ruling body would not make the strategic mistake ..., but if it does so, then Iran’s response will be firm, decisive, and crushing and the US should accept its consequences,” he noted.
The Iranian spokesman also expressed the hope that wise people among the US statesmen would take steps to prevent the sanctions.
In early August, Donald Trump signed into law one of the most wide-ranging sanctions measures of the last five years, known as Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which enhances three separate sanctions programs targeting Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
CAATSA expands US sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic missile program and enhances the legal basis for existing sanctions targeting the IRGC. It would also establish an additional US legal basis for sanctions targeting IRGC on the allegations of support for terrorism.
In mid-September, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei lambasted the US for violating the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), warning that any “wrong move” concerning the nuclear deal would draw reaction from Iran.
Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, US, Britain, France, and Germany) reached the 159-page nuclear agreement in July 2015 and started to implement it in January 2016.
Since the historic deal was signed in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly confirmed the Islamic Republic’s compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA, but some other parties, especially the US, have failed to live up to their undertakings.
The US has even imposed many fresh sanctions against Iran, in flagrant defiance of the JCPOA.
