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The Iranian foreign ministry designated the Royal Canadian Navy a terrorist organisation on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for Canada’s 2024 blacklisting of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
In a statement, the ministry said that the move was in reaction to Ottawa declaring the Guards, the ideological arm of Iran’s military, a terror group “contrary to the fundamental principles of international law”.
Iran, “within the framework of reciprocity, identifies and declares the Royal Canadian Navy as a terrorist organisation,” the statement added, without specifying what ramifications, if any, the force will face.
On June 19, 2024, Canada declared the IRGC a terror group. This bars its members from entering the country and Canadians from having any dealings with individual members or the group. Additionally, any assets the Guards or their members hold in Canada could also be seized.
Canada accused the Guards of “having consistently displayed disregard for human rights both inside and outside of Iran, as well as a willingness to destabilise the international rules-based order.”
One of the reasons behind Ottawa’s decision to designate the force as a terror group was the Flight PS752 incident. The flight was shot down shortly after takeoff from Tehran in January 2020, killing all 176 passengers and crew, including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
The IRGC admitted its forces downed the jet, but claimed their controllers had mistaken it for a hostile target.
Ottawa broke off diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2012, calling Iran “the most significant threat to global peace”.
Iran’s archenemy, the United States, listed the Guards as a foreign terrorist organisation in April 2019, while Australia did the same last month, accusing the force of being behind attacks on Australian soil.
