Iran’s Zarif urges countries to take position on US step against Revolutionary Guards
![Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers [file photo]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/images/article_images/middle-east/iranian-revolutionary-guards-2.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
Iran will ask the international community
to take a position on the US designation of its Revolutionary Guards as a
terrorist organisation, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was cited
as saying on Sunday, Reuters reports.
Iran
condemned US President Donald Trump’s step last week as illegal. The
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is a powerful elite force
which controls much of the Iranian state and economy.
“We
will send messages to foreign ministers of all countries to tell them
it is necessary for them to express their stances, and to warn them that
this unprecedented and dangerous US measure has had and will have
consequences,” Zarif was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
Zarif
said he had also sent letters to United Nations Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres and the United Nations Security Council to protest
against “this illegal US measure”.
Tehran retaliated against Washington’s
move by designating the regional United States Central Command (CENTCOM)
as a terrorist organisation.
Relations
between Tehran and Washington took a turn for the worse last May when
Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world
powers, reached before he took office, and reimposed sanctions.
The
United States has already blacklisted dozens of entities and people for
affiliations with the IRGC, but had not previously targeted the
organisation as a whole.
Revolutionary
Guards commanders have repeatedly said that US bases in the Middle East
and US aircraft carriers in the Gulf are within range of Iranian
missiles.
Tehran has also threatened to
disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if the
United States tries to strangle Iran’s economy by halting its oil
exports.
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