EU foreign ministers agreed in principle on Monday to extend sanctions on Iran following Tehran’s missile and drone attack on Israel, carried out in response to Israel’s assassination of seven Iranian military advisers in Damascus.
“We have reached a political agreement to expand and expand the existing (sanctions) regime on drones to cover the missiles and their potential… transfer to Russia,” Borrell told reporters after a meeting of foreign ministers of the EU in Luxembourg.
Sanctions would also be expanded beyond Russia to cover shipments of drones and missiles not only to Russia but also to its proxies in the region, he added.
Iran has repeatedly rejected baseless claims that it supplied Russia with weapons to be used in the war in Ukraine.
Tehran has also stressed that regional armed groups do not take orders from Iran, nor does the Islamic Republic have any role in their decisions to carry out military operations against the United States and Israel, and has rejected unfounded claims about the delivery of weapons to them.
The EU decision came after Tehran attacked the occupied territories with a barrage of drones and missiles in retaliation for Israel’s killing of several Iranian military advisers in Syria.
Earlier Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaaani warned that the EU would be “rewarding the aggressor” if it pursued such measures against Tehran.
“If they take (that) measure, it would go down in European history as a reprehensible action,” he added.
He reminded the EU that its previous sanctions against Iran had failed to hinder the country’s progress.
“The sanctions policy is a failed policy,” said Kanaani, advising the bloc to “learn from the past.”