Time to proscribe Iranian Guard Corps, Pickles says

► ERIC PICKLES has called for the UK government to follow the lead of “our American allies” in proscribing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Speaking in the House of Lords on Tuesday, Lord Pickles suggested banning the group “would send a clear signal to Iran that the normalisation of relations cannot be conducted through a terrorist organisation.”

He spoke following a statement from Lord Ahmad, Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on the situation in the Middle East.

Lord Pickles, who chairs the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, said Lord Ahmad had himself “identified the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a source of instability in the region and that it has consorted with a terrorist organisation both in the region and in Europe.”

The Corps is a branch of the Iranian military but operates independently of it. It oversees the elite Quds Force led by Qassem Soleimani until his assassination in a US drone strike last week.

Lord Ahmad said: “We condemn all acts of terrorism, wherever perpetrated and whoever the perpetrator. On my noble friend’s specific question about proscribing this organisation, I have already said what our view of the organisation is. If it meets the requirements of the criteria for proscribing an organisation, I am sure it will be looked at at the appropriate time.”

The Corps is currently designated a terrorist organisation by the governments of the US, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Since its establishment in 1979 it has been involved in many economic and military controversies.

In December 2009, evidence uncovered during an investigation by the

Guardian linked the Corps to the kidnappings of five Britons from a government building in Baghdad in 2007.

Three of the hostages, Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst and Alec Maclachlan, were killed. Another hostage, Alan Mcmenemy, is presumed dead but the fifth, Peter Moore, was released in December 2009.

The investigation uncovered evidence that Mr Moore, a computer expert from Lincoln, was targeted because he was installing a system for the Iraqi government that would show how a vast amount of international aid was diverted to Iran’s militia groups in Iraq.

It is currently designated a terrorist group by the US and Saudi