Photo: Collected
The European Union is currently lacking grounds to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organizations, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday (16 April).
Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that he had asked more than 30 countries to impose sanctions against Iran's missile program and declare the IRGC a terrorist organization.
"We have repeatedly discussed adding the Guard Corps to the list of terrorist organizations, what former US President Donald Trump did. However, this requires for the judicial authority of a member state [of the EU] to recognize that this organization has committed a terrorist act. At the moment this is not the case," Borrell said in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde.
As for new sanctions against Tehran, Borrell said that this first requires "things that can be sanctioned."
On Sunday, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said that the bloc would consider piling more sanctions on Iran to limit its drone and missile capabilities after the attack on Israel.
On Saturday night, the IRGC launched over 300 drones and missiles at Israel in its first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. The attack came in response to Israel's airstrike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital in early April. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel had intercepted 99% of the aerial targets fired by Iran, including all drones.
Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said on Sunday that the government would build an international coalition to confront Iran. He said Israel's retaliation to Iran's air attack would be "in the fashion and timing of our choice."
Messenger/Mumu
