Iran has declared European countries’ armies “terrorist groups”, its parliament speaker said Sunday, following the EU’s decision to apply the same designation to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Lawmakers wore the green uniform of the Guards in a display of solidarity at the legislative session, where they chanted “Death to America”, “Death to Israel,” and “Shame on you, Europe”, state television footage showed.
Slamming the bloc’s “irresponsible action”, speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that under “Article 7 of the Law on Countermeasures Against the Declaration of the IRGC as a Terrorist Organisation, the armies of European countries are considered terrorist groups”.
It remained unclear what immediate impact the decision would have.
The law was first passed in 2019, when the United States classified the Guards as a terrorist organisation.
Sunday’s session was held on the 47th anniversary of the return from exile of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic in 1979.
The Guards are the ideological arm of Iran’s military, tasked with safeguarding the Islamic revolution from external and internal threats.
