Iran is summoning ambassadors from the European Union to protest against the decision to list the Revolutionary Guard as a terror group.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said that the meetings to discuss the terror listing had begun on Sunday and would continue into Monday.
“We think that in coming days, a decision will be made about a reciprocal action by the Islamic Republic of Iran toward the illegal, unreasonable and very wrong move by the EU,” he warned.
The EU listed the paramilitary as a terror group last week in response to the deadly protest crackdown in Iran that has seen thousands killed.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament responded on Sunday, saying that the Islamic Republic now considered all European Union military forces to be terrorist groups, citing a 2019 law.
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The exchange comes amid rising tensions following weeks of protests in Iran and the brutal government crackdown that followed.
US president Donald Trump, had threatened to intervene and has sent the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and several guided-missile destroyers to the region.
But Washington and Tehran have recently signalled a readiness to revive diplomacy and dispel fears of a new regional
war.
Iran is weighing the terms for resuming talks with the United States soon, a foreign ministry official said on Monday. Mr Trump has said that he wants to make a deal.
The European Union is following other countries, including the US and Canada, in designating the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organisation. The move is largely symbolic but could add to the economic pressure Tehran is facing.
Summoning ambassadors is a formal diplomatic tool that can be used by an embassy’s host country to express anger towards another nation.
The Revolutionary Guard emerged from Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force to protect the new cleric led regime.
It operated in parallel with the country’s regular armed forces and grew in power during a long war with Iraq in the 1980s. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei then granted it powers to expand into private enterprise.
The organisation is thought to have played a major role in putting down this year’s demonstrations,
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