US fires 'warning shot' at EU over drive for IRGC terror proscription

Bloc and UK are resisting pressure to follow in footsteps of Biden administration

Demonstrators hold Iranian flags at a protest backing the Iranian resistance movement outside the EU headquarters in Brussels. AFP

More than 130 members of the US Congress have fired a “warning shot” to the EU in a letter calling for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be declared a terrorist organisation and proscribed.

Addressed to the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the group said Iran was a “leading state sponsor of terror” that has for decades “freely and openly carried out plots targeting citizens in countries across the EU”.

As US President Joe Biden prepared to arrive in Northern Ireland on Tuesday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the conversation in Washington was centred on Iran.

‘US and EU freedom of speech at risk’

Four years after the US placed the IRGC on its list of foreign terrorist entities, Congressmen and women from across the political spectrum claimed the EU’s hesitancy to follow suit could compromise freedom of speech.

“We strongly urge you, and your foreign affairs ministerial colleagues, to make the decision to fully sanction, penalise and delegitimise the IRGC, to help prevent them from further threatening democracy and freedom in the United States, Europe and around the world,” the open letter read.

The members said while they appreciated the complexities behind any decision on a terrorist designation, “given the growing threat Iran poses to EU member states and their citizens, we urge you to treat this issue with the utmost urgency”.

“We believe there is an abundance of evidence available to the EU to provide the necessary basis for a terror designation for the IRGC, particularly given the European Court of Justice’s ruling that investigations and prosecutions outside of the EU may be used as evidence to support additions to the terror list,” they wrote in the letter dated April 10.

The listed several terrorist plots uncovered in Europe that authorities had linked to Iran, including a case of planned attacks on synagogues in Germany.

Signatories of the bipartisan letter included Kathy Manning, vice member of the US House foreign affairs committee, Tom Kean, chairman of the Europe subcommittee and Bill Keating, member of the Europe subcommittee.

The UK government is also under increasing pressure to place the IRGC in the same category as Isis, Al Qaeda and Hamas.

Vahid Beheshti, a British-Iranian, on Tuesday entered his 48th day on hunger strike outside the Foreign Office in central London as part of his campaign to exert pressure on the government to proscribe the IRGC. He told The National he felt disappointed that “there is no big movement on the government side” but vowed to press on with his hunger strike.

Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (Uani), a US-based advocacy group, told The National that the letter represented a “warning shot” to the EU.

“I think the EU and the UK should take the letter as an expression of US exasperation on a bipartisan basis that its closest allies haven’t followed in its footsteps and declared the IRGC a terrorist organisation,” he said.

“What’s notable are the signatories on the letter range from progressives to conservatives. So Brussels and London should view that dynamic as a warning shot.

“For all the talk from the Biden administration about how united the US and Europe are with respect to Iran once again, members of Congress have not seen enough out of Europe on basic steps like proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. This unity has to be applied to an end, and on Iran, members of Congress are just not seeing enough out of European allies.”

‘I’m not going anywhere’

Speaking to The National on day 48 of his hunger strike, Mr Beheshti expressed disappointment that his campaign had so far failed to make the government budge on an IRGC proscription.

While he met Security Minister Tom Tugendhat a couple of weeks into his protest, he has yet to receive a response from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with whom he has requested a meeting.

He said he had been heartened by the support offered by MPs such as Alicia Kearns, the chairwoman of the influential foreign affairs committee in Parliament.

The Conservative politician last week paid tribute to Mr Beheshti’s “immense strength as he raises his voice to make clear that the UK must not accept the IRGC's militancy, terrorism, hostage-taking, kidnapping and intimidation”.

“We can make that clear by closing their so-called 'Islamic Centres' and proscribing them,” she wrote on Twitter.

Mr Beheshti, whose campaign The National has followed since the outset, explained that denying his body food for almost seven weeks meant “it has become really hard for me to walk”. But despite suffering drastic consequences of his hunger strike, he said he remains determined to achieve his aim.

“I am getting weaker but mentally and internally more determined,” he said.

“I will stay here and I will go nowhere until we achieve this together.”