Iran on Thursday condemned as “irresponsible” the decision of the Canadian government to put the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, on its list of terrorist entities.
Canada announced Wednesday that it had placed the Revolutionary Guards on its blacklist because Iran had “shown contempt for human rights” and demonstrated a “desire to destabilize the international order.”
This is “a hostile measure”, reacted the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanani, in a press release.
“This irresponsible and provocative action is part of the wrong path that the Canadian government has taken for more than a decade,” he added, specifying that Tehran reserved the right to provide “a response […] proportionate”.
Canada can now freeze assets and prosecute members of the organization. And all financial transactions are also prohibited.
Ottawa’s decision comes in a context of great tension for several years between the two countries, which have not maintained diplomatic relations since 2012.
Canada follows the United States in blacklisting the Revolutionary Guards in 2019, while some European politicians are calling on their countries to do the same.
Since the protest triggered in 2022 in Iran by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died in detention after being arrested by the morality police, Ottawa has taken several rounds of sanctions against Iranian organizations and officials accused of being complicit with the regime. .
Canada notably banned 10,000 Iranian officials from its territory, including members of the Revolutionary Guards.
Ottawa had already blacklisted the Quds Force, the external operations branch of the Guardians.
Like several other countries, Canada is suing Iran before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to hold Tehran legally responsible for shooting down a Ukrainian Boeing in 2020.
Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, operating between Tehran and kyiv, was shot down on January 8, 2020, shortly after takeoff, causing the death of 176 people, mostly Iranians and Canadians.