UK government decides not to prohibit IRGC

(MENAFN) The government has temporarily postponed a plan to declare Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be a terrorist group in the United Kingdom due to concerns that the action may sever diplomatic ties between London and Tehran. How long the pause is going to last is unknown.

The IRGC, which was founded in 1979 following the Iranian revolution, has been charged of planning terrorism, assassinations, assaults, and other aggressive actions around the globe.

The proposed prohibition would have prevented the IRGC from raising money in the United Kingdom by making membership in the organization or attending gatherings in favour of it unlawful.

Ken McCallum, the director general of the United Kingdom intelligence agency MI5, charged the IRGC in November with intending to kill or abduct British citizens at least ten times in the last year.

The British security agencies also claimed that the IRGC had threatened the journalists in the London headquarters of the news organization Iran International, forcing the stationing of armed police there.

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