Iranian Parliament Finalize Motion to Counteract US Move on IRGC

By Staff, Agencies

The Iranian parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy passed a double-urgency motion to take a reciprocal measure against the United States' move to designate the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps [IRGC] as a terrorist organization.

"Based on one of the motion's articles, the Islamic Republic of Iran's government is duty-bound to carry out reciprocal and firm measures against American forces' terrorist actions that endanger the Islamic Republic of Iran's interests, within the framework of decisions ratified by the Supreme National Security Council," the committee' spokesman Ali Najafi Khoshroudi told reporters on Monday.

Another article of the motion also obliges the government to take legal action at international bodies against the illegal US move and do its utmost to foil Washington's measures by maintaining mutual and multilateral contacts and holding consultations with world organizations, he added.

The committee passed the motion on the same day that the United States officially registered Iran’s IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, according to a notice published on the website of the US Federal Register.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in his notice that based upon a review of the Administrative Record assembled in this matter, and in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, “I conclude that there is a sufficient factual basis to find that the relevant circumstances described in section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended [hereinafter “INA”] [8 U.S.C. 1189], exist with respect to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard[s] Corps, also known as [the] IRGC.”

US President Donald Trump said in a statement on April 8 that the Iranian elite forces' designation "makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism."

Shortly after Trump's statement, Iran's Supreme National Security Council slammed the US government as "supporter of terrorism," designating American forces in West Asia, known as the United States Central Command [CENTCOM], as a "terrorist organization."