220 politicians from Europe, Canada, and the United States on Thursday released a statement calling on the European Union and Canada to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies as terrorist organizations.
“We, lawmakers from opposite sides of the Atlantic and with diverse political views, are united in our grave concern about the growing threat to regional and global peace posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” the statement reads. “Since its inception in 1979, the IRGC has created and funded a multitude of terror groups in the region, including Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The regime has used these terror proxies to spread death, terror, and instability in the Middle East and beyond. The transatlantic community should therefore impose sanctions and designate the IRGC, and all of Iran’s terror proxies, as the terrorists they are.”
The statement was delivered Thursday to the European Commission, the European External Action Service, the European Council, and the governments of all 27 EU member states. The initiative was led by the American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Friends of Israel project. Signatories included 27 US Senators and Congressional Representatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties, including statement co-initiators Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), as well as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Reps. Kathy Manning (D-NC) and Dan Crenshaw (R-TX).
The statement calls for the EU and Canada to designate the IRGC, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah in their entirety as terrorist organizations, something that currently only the United States does. Canada on Friday imposed sanctions on the IRGC for human rights violations and for supporting Russia, while the EU has only imposed sanctions on the IRGC’s Aerospace Force.
