UK Minister Says Iran Guards Sanctioned, Europe Keeps Up Diplomacy
James Cleverly, the British foreign secretary, has again said that the United Kingdom has sanctioned Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps “in its entirety.”
James Cleverly, the British foreign secretary, has again said that the United Kingdom has sanctioned Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps “in its entirety.”
The British foreign office tweeted Tuesday a clip of Cleverly listing British sanctions against Iran where he mentions judges, morality police, individuals and companies allegedly involved in supply military drones to Moscow, as well as “the IRGC in its entirety.”
Cleverly December 13 said in parliament, according to the official record: “We already sanction the IRGC in its entirety.” But questioned immediately before this on the government’s intentions by John Spellar, a parliament member, Cleverly suggested that any IRGC designation remained in its future plans: “The UK is committed to holding Iran to account, including with more than 300 sanctions—including the sanctioning of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety.”
The UK announced December 9 the sanctioning of ten Iranian officials connected to Iran’s judicial and prison systems. “There is growing frustration that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) the branch of the Iranian army accused of peddling terror abroad, has escaped sanctions that would see it proscribed,” claimed the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper the following day. Neither was the IRGC mentioned when the UK December 13 sanctioned Iranians purportedly involved in transferring drones to Russia.
The United States government in 2019 included the IRGC in its list of ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’ a move announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as the US “continuing to build its maximum pressure campaign against the Iranian regime.” The Trump administration had the previous year launched ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions as it withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
This remains the only example of Washington including part of a sovereign state’s armed forces as a ‘foreign terrorist organization,’ a category otherwise comprised of non-state groups. The US 2019 press release on the listing referred to the IRGC “in its entirety,” the same phrase used by Cleverly.
Critics of JCPOA have long argued for designating the IRGC, with Canada following the US in October. During talks aimed at restoring the 2015 agreement, which have foundered since late summer leaving Iran’s nuclear program expanding and ‘maximum pressure’ in place, there have been intermittent reports of Iran seeking to have the designation lifted.
‘Moving talks forward’
Peter Stano, the European Union foreign affairs spokesman, Monday defended the “diplomacy” and “engagement” seen in EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell meeting with Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Jordan December 20. Given the EU role coordinating multilateral nuclear talks in Vienna April 2021-March 2022 and subsequent bilateral Iran-US meetings, Stano said the meeting had been part of moving “talks about the revival of the JCPOA forward.”
In Tehran, Javad Karimi-Qudousi, a conservative member of the parliament’s national security commission, told the reformist newspaper Etemad that progress had been made on two issues stymying the talks – an enquiry by the International Atomic Energy Agency into Iran’s pre-2003 nuclear work and the status of foreign investment should the US again leave the agreement.
There has been ongoing speculation in Israel that failure to renew the JCPOA will lead to an Israeli attack. With Benjamin Netanyahu, a virulent JCPOA opponent due to form a new government including the Religious Zionism Party, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kohavi, the Israeli chief of staff, said Tuesday the “level of preparedness for an operation in Iran has dramatically improved.”
While he would “say no more than that,” Kohavi promised the armed forces would be “ready for the day when an order is given to act against the [Iranian] nuclear program.” Kohavi, who was Israeli Operations Director during the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza conflict when 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died, claimed Israel carried out at least one operation “against Iran” weekly somewhere across the Middle East.
Multiple pundits and politicians are questioning a one-sided foreign policy in favor of China and Russia and calling for balance and a resumption of the suspended nuclear talks with the West. They have also unleashed tough criticism against foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, saying that he is not capable of steering the country’s foreign relations.
The attacks began after he attended a regional summit in Jordan, where he met the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, expressing Tehran’s readiness to resume nuclear talks. No tangible results emerged from the trip.
Expediency Council member Mohammad Sadr, has harshly criticized Iran's dependency on Russia and China in an interview with the centrist Entekhab News, charging that the two countries are not Iran's strategic allies, but they solely follow their own interests. He further criticized the foreign minister and the President Ebrahim Raisi for failing to give a proper response to China putting its signature on a statement with the Gulf Cooperation Council states that questioned Iran's ownership of three Persian Gulf islands.
In the reality of the Islamic Republic, everyone knows that these decisions are made in the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, not at the foreign ministry or by the president.
Earlier last week, others including academic and foreign relations expert Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh also attacked Iran's ideological foreign policy and the performance of the Foreign Ministry, while former diplomat Ahmad Azizi called on Khamenei's office to take over the responsibilities of the Foreign Ministry.
Sadr also criticized Iran's policy regarding relations with Saudi Arabia, adding that Riyadh is waiting for US Republicans to win the presidency, before revealing its real intentions toward Iran. Sadr called for a realistic foreign policy that would prioritize the country's national interests. Iran, he said, should maintain relations with all countries except Israel, and seek to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, or JCPOA.
An expert on international relations Mehdi Motaharnia told Fararu website in Tehran that if Iran continues its current foreign policy of aligning with China and Russia and considering itself an enemy of the United States and Europe, it will have no third option soon vis-à-vis the EU-US-Israeli alliance and the new alliance between Arab countries and Israel. He warned that China and Russia have also let Tehran down.
Fararu observed that the biggest political upheaval of the country in the past 43 years has paralyzed the government and asked Motaharnia if there was a third way out for Iran.
Motaharnia responded that Iran's tilt towards the Russia and China has left nothing of its initial non-alignment policy. As a result, whatever is against the West finds legitimacy. This inevitably brings about an identity crisis for the political system.
He added that Tehran not only needs to redefine its relations with the West, but it also needs to reform its internal governance. Motaharnia said that this will determine international community's approach to Iran in coming months.
Meanwhile, as some of Iran's hardliners such as the editor of Kayhan newspaper have harshly attacked Amir Abdollahian's attempts to resume talks with the West, former diplomat Fereidouin Majles has said in an interview with moderate Roiuyda24 website that the approach of some of Raisi's supporters will lead to Iran's further isolation. Majlesi said ironically that while everybody wants to determine the fate of the JCPOA in his own way, let us shut down the Foreign Ministry and let the Tehran Municipality to regulate Iran's relations with the rest of the world. Majlesi charged that the Foreign Ministry's critics have no concern about Iran's interests.
In an interview released on Saturday, Canada’s envoy to the United Nations Bob Rae told Iran International’s correspondent that organizations focused on accountability have started to gather and verify information about the current wave of antigovernment protests.
He praised efforts by the United Nations “to get to the root of the injustices that are happening to make sure that the investigations are in place; that we are gathering the information and the evidence that will lead to accountability.”
The Canadian diplomat underlined that there should be consequences for the criminal acts, “and many things that are happening in Iran are criminal,” he said, noting that there are “abuses of human rights and abuses of international law.”
He urged the people of Iran to be patient to see the results of mechanisms deployed to hold the regime accountable, saying there is no tribunal yet because the Islamic Republic is not a party to the International Criminal Court. However, he said that “there will be a reckoning; there will be an accountability process for the regime in Iran.”
"We're not going to invade Iran, but we won't ignore what's happening either. The regime isn't stable or predictable because the ground underneath the feet of the regime is shifting all the time... Dictators think they can control everything, but they can't," he stated, adding that “Canada has always been a place of refuge.”
Earlier in the month, the Islamic Republic was voted out of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) for policies contrary to the rights of women and girls. Members of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a US-drafted resolution to "remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission…for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term.” The CSW is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
It was the second step against the Islamic Republic’s violations of human rights during the current wave of protests. The first step by the United Nations was creating a fact-finding mission by the Human Rights Council. The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council voted on November 24 to launch an independent investigation into the regime’s deadly repression of protests that has killed around 500 civilians, including about 60 children.
The Islamic Republic might become more isolated in the Middle East, as policies of intervening in other countries affairs was condemned at the “Baghdad II” summit, held December 20 in Jordan aimed at resolving regional crises, particularly in Iraq. France and the European Union play a major role in the annual gathering. The first summit was held in Baghdad last year.
Etemad newspaper in Tehran cited Macron as talking about a regional project, supported by France, to limit Iran’s influence in the region. The daily quoted Macron as saying that he is convinced there is no solution to the problems of Lebanon, Iraq and Syria except through reducing Tehran's regional influence.
During the summit, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said, "We reject interference in its (Iraq) internal affairs, undermining its sovereignty, or attacking its lands.” At the same time, he added, "We do not accept any threat to be launched from Iraq against any of the neighboring countries or the region."
Since the beginning of the uprising in Iran in mid-September, Tehran has accused foreign countries, including regional rival Saudi Arabia – with which it has had no diplomatic relations since 2016 – of fomenting unrest as protests rage on.