Turkey criticizes US blacklist of Iran Revolutionary Guards

The US decision to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization is a dangerous development that could lead to chaos, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Turkish minister also said that US sanctions were harming the people of Iran.

US President Donald Trump officially designated the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization earlier this month, calling the decision an “unprecedented” move which “recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.”

The decision effectively means that anyone who deals with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could face prison in the United States.

Shortly after the US announced its move, Iran countered by declaring the United States a “state sponsor of terrorism” and US forces in the region “terrorist groups”.

On Tuesday, Iranian lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill labeling US forces in the Middle East as terrorists, thus authorizing the government to act firmly in response to “terrorist actions” by US forces.

Relations between Iran and the US have increased since Washington reimposed sanctions on Iran, including on its energy sector, last November, after Trump pulled out of the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“When we start adding other countries’ armies to terror lists, then serious cracks will occur in the system of international law,” Cavusoglu said Wednesday, according to AP. “Trust in the global system will decline and total chaos will ensue.”

“Our conscience does not accept that the brotherly Iranian people be punished,” Cavusoglu said of US sanctions on Iran. “Such steps put regional stability, peace, calm and economic development under risk.”