Tehran warns US on naming Guards a terrorist group

tehran — Iran said on Tuesday that the United States would be siding with the Daesh group if it designated the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation.

“The Guards are the defender of the nation,” government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht told reporters.

“If the US wants to put the Guards on the terrorist list, it puts itself in the camp of terrorists. “Any country that wants to have such a position about the Guards will share this view with the Daesh terrorists,” he said.

Reports in the Financial Times and other media have suggested US President Donald Trump may call for the Guards to be designated a terrorist group as part of a tougher strategy against Iran.

Analysts say such a move would have a very limited impact on the Guards, who are already subject to a wide range of sanctions and whose external operations arm — the Qods Force — is already designated as a terrorist organisation. But Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi threatened a “firm, decisive and crushing” response if it went ahead. — AFP