Envoy Warns of Iran’s Retaliation over US Action against IRGC
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Iran's ambassador to London warned the US that Tehran will “forcefully retaliate” against any military move threatening the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), which has been blacklisted by the US administration.
In an interview with CNN’s Christian Amanpour on Thursday, Iran’s UK Ambassador Hamid Baeidinejad said the American military forces in the Persian Gulf region were in a volatile situation and it wouldn’t be wise if they decided to take action against the IRGC.
“The reality is the US forces are now in the region, so logically now there are concerns even within the US establishment for naming the IRGC as a terrorist organization because now it can have a very immediate impact over the situation the US forces have in the region,” the envoy noted.
Baeidinejad said blacklisting the IRGC was only rhetorical and that he did not believe that Washington would ever instruct US forces to really confront the IRGC and treat it as a terrorist force.
“If they dare to implement those instructions that the IRGC is a terrorist organization… if they move to counter the IRGC, they would see how forcefully they would be retaliated on the ground… So I imagine that these are just rhetorics,” he added, Press TV reported.
The Iranian ambassador also stressed that the IRGC needed to be rewarded for its efforts in eradicating Daesh (ISIL) and other terrorist groups in the Middle East region.
“The IRGC has been very effectively fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria… They have been very effective in helping those two countries (Iraq and Syria) in fighting ISIS,” he underlined.
Decrying US President Donald Trump's move as a “pre-election gift” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the envoy said American officials never really thought about the possible consequences.
Trump announced on Monday that Washington is designating the IRGC a foreign “terrorist organization”, marking the first time the US has formally labelled another country's military a terrorist group.
Responding to the move, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council immediately declared the US as a state sponsor of terrorism and US forces in the region terrorists.
The SNSC said it has put CENTCOM on its terror list as a “reciprocal measure” against the US “illegal and unwise” move.
