EU to place fresh sanctions on Iran over protest crackdown

Foreign ministers of the European Union are expected to sign off on fresh sanctions on Iran on Monday.

German news agency DPA reported that the new sanctions will target roughly three dozen Iranian individuals and organizations.

The move would be the EU's fourth round of sanctions on Iran since widespread protests emerged after 23-year-old Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the morality police last year.

Those previous sanctions targeted 146 individuals and 12 organizations targeted, including members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in response to the police crackdown on protesters and subsequent executions.

Iran warns of 'reciprocal' measures after terror designation

Earlier, on Wednesday, members of the European Parliament voted to include the IRGC on its terror list "light of its terrorist activity, the repression of protesters and its supplying of drones to Russia."

However, ahead of the meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell any such terror listing would first require approval from a court.

"It is something that cannot be decided without a court, a court decision first. You cannot say I consider you a terrorist because I don't like you," Borrell told reporters in Brussels. 

Meanwhile, Iranian authorities said on Sunday that Tehran is working to put "elements of European countries' armies" on its own terror list.

"The European Parliament shot itself in the foot," Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted on Sunday.