After the European Parliament on Wednesday January 18th adopted an amendment calling on the EU and its member states to include Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on their terror list, Mohammad Hassan Asfari, Vice Chairman of the Internal Affairs and Councils Commission in the Iranian Parliament, said on Monday January 23rd that such actions of Europe would not go without response. “We will definitely not remain silent either. Closing the Strait of Hormuz is on the agenda of the parliament,” he said.
The European Parliament also passed a resolution on January 19th, calling for more sanctions against Iranian individuals and entities.
Asfari said that “if the Europeans are going to treat our armed forces and official forces like this [terrorists], we will also put other options on the table, including restricting the traffic of European commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz in the form of an urgent plan in the parliament. It is better for the Europeans to cancel their decision before it is too late.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said that several of the European political leaders were “inexperienced in diplomacy”.
He warned that Iran could, if it wished, withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and discharge the inspectors of the UN nuclear agency.
The Iranian parliament voted to censure the European Parliament’s “wrong” decision, which they said was politically motivated and based on false information and misjudgements.