Iran is threatening the European Union with consequences if the terrorist listing of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) proposed by the EU Parliament should actually be carried out.
"The European Parliament has shot itself in the foot and the response will be countermeasures," Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian tweeted on Sunday.
Parliament is already working on a draft on this, Amirabdollahian continued.
He attended a meeting in Iran's parliament on Sunday with the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Hussein Salami, to discuss further details.
The exact planned countermeasures are unclear.
There was talk of detaining foreign oil tankers in the Persian Gulf or restricting passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
It is one of the most important shipping routes in the world, through which many oil transports run.
The EU wants to decide on new sanctions on Monday
The Revolutionary Guards are Iran's elite armed forces, designed to protect the state's ideology and, above all, to prevent a coup.
In recent decades, they have also risen to become an economic powerhouse.
The unit has come under increasing criticism for its role in suppressing the recent wave of protests.
Many Iranians and politicians in Europe are now calling for the IRGC to be classified as a terrorist organization.
In view of the numerous human rights violations since the protest demonstrations broke out in mid-September, the EU had already imposed sanctions on many senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry had already sharply condemned the EU plans.
Vice President and former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Resaei, on Thursday described members of the European Parliament as "political midgets" who would bitterly regret their decision.
On Sunday, the state-run daily newspaper called for the breaking off of diplomatic and economic relations with all European countries that had supported the Revolutionary Guards' terrorist listing.
The EU foreign ministers want to formally decide on new sanctions against Iran at a meeting this Monday, as diplomats have confirmed.