One EU diplomat from a country that had pushed for the listing in the lead-up to Thursday’s meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels said footage of parents looking for their children in body bags had been particularly “horrific” and “motivating,” along with reports of deaths in the tens of thousands.
Early on Wednesday afternoon, Spain signaled its position had also shifted, with the foreign ministry telling POLITICO it supported the designation, which puts the Revolutionary Guard in the same category as al Qaeda, Hamas and Daesh.
Paris was the last holdout.
French officials had argued such a massive terror listing — the group has more than 100,000 personnel — would limit opportunities to talk about nuclear nonproliferation and other matters due to the fact that many of Europe’s interlocutors are tied to the sprawling Revolutionary Guards.
France, along with the U.K. and Germany, is also a member of the E3 group of nations that are holding nuclear talks with Iran. While the E3 recently activated snapback sanctions on Tehran over its failure to cooperate with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Paris was still hoping for a diplomatic solution.
For France, keeping the Revolutionary Guard off the EU terror list “maintained the possibility that the E3 could play a role if the negotiations on the nuclear program started again,” said a European diplomat.
