After Washington, London, and Brussel announced new sanctions against Tehran, the Islamic Republic retaliated this Monday by imposing sanctions on EU and UK individuals and legal entities.
In a statement this Monday, Iranian foreign ministry announced imposing sanctions against a number of individuals and legal entities in the European Union and the United Kingdom in what the ministry called a ‘countermeasure against their acts of interference’ in internal affairs of the Islamic Republic.
the sanctions are imposed in compliance with the decisions made by the related bodies in reaction to measures taken by some EU and UK individuals and legal entities in providing support for terrorism and terrorist groups, instigating and encouraging acts of terrorism and violence against the Iranian people, interference in internal affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran and spreading violence and unrest across the country,” the foreign ministry said in the statement.
Iran’s foreign ministry also accused the newly-sanctioned countries of spreading lies and misinformation about Iran and participating in the exacerbation of oppressive sanctions against the country which Tehran sees as an example of ‘economic terrorism’.
It was a day earlier on Sunday that the British government issued a statement and said that the UK, U.S. and EU are announcing further sanctions on Iranian officials, including those from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“The UK has designated more than 70 Iranian officials and entities for human rights violations since October 2022, with the total number of Iran-related designations amounting to more than 300. The list includes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety, the Iranian Prosecutor General and the Morality Police,” the statement said.
The latest UK sanctions targeted eight Iranians, including four regional commanders of the IRGC, and a mobile telecommunications provider over alleged human rights abuses. Sweden, as the presidency of the Council of the EU, confirmed that the Foreign Affairs Council has adopted the 7th package of sanctions against individuals and entities from Iran for what they called ‘human rights violations in Iran’.
Iran’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Mehdi Esmaeili, Minister of Education Yousef Nouri, the IRGC spokesperson, a number of MPs, members of the judiciary and police in various regions in the country, as well as prison wardens, are some of the famous Iranians hit by new sanctions.
How did Iran respond to the new sanctions?
Iran condemned European Union and the UK for supporting and facilitating the acts of these individuals and entities, and failing to counter their destructive measures which are “a breach of the international commitments in the area of the fight against terrorism”,
The Iranian foreign ministry also said that the imposition and exacerbation of the arbitrary sanctions against Iran run contrary to the fundamental principles of the international law enshrined in the UN Charter. Hitting back in a tit-for-tat move, the foreign ministry of the Islamic Republic issued a list of names of individuals and entities of UK and the European Union to be sanctioned by Iran from Monday.
Among the individuals from the EU, there were names such as Edward Lintner, former member of the German Parliament, Olivier Klein, Minister Delegate for Cities and Housing in France, and Ilana Cicurel, Member of the European Parliament. The European Friends of Israel (EFI), the Bau Heberger Construction Company, and Radio J, a radio station in Paris, are also among the names of entities hit by Iran’s new sanctions.
Of the UK individuals sanctioned by Iran are names such as Sir Richard Billing Dearlove, former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, General Patrick Sanders, Chief of the General Staff of the British Army, and Alex Younger, former career British intelligence officer for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). And British entities sanctioned include the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), the Telecommunications Information Licensing Department, and the Royal Marine Air and Drone Center Culdrose (RNAS Culdrose).
