Top EU diplomats recognize Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorists

Foreign ministers of the European Union member states have recognized the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, said high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy Kaja Kallas.

"Repression cannot go unanswered [...] Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise," she wrote.

The IRGC is an elite military organization that exists separately from the country's Armed Forces and is directly subordinate to the "supreme leader" of the Islamic Republic, ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The main goal of the Corps is to preserve the current regime in Iran.

The United States declared the IRGC a terrorist organization back in 2019, during first cadence of the president Donald Trump.

HRANA, a human rights organization based in the United States, reported on January 28, that the number of confirmed deaths as a result of the protests in Iran reached 6373: 5993 of them were demonstrators, 113 were children, 214 were representatives of forces affiliated with the regime, and 53 were non-protesters or civilians. The number of deaths still under investigation is 17 091.

A total of 42 486 people have been arrested in the country, the organization says.

• Also on January 29, the EU Council adopted new sanctions against Iran for military support of Russian aggression and massive human rights violations.
• The Reuters sources said that the US president is considering a new strike on Iran to revive the protests and contribute to the overthrow of the current regime.
• Axios interlocutors said that the Trump administration is hosting senior defense and intelligence officials of Israel and Saudi Arabia for negotiations on Iran.