BRUSSELS, December 12. /TASS/. The European Union will impose very tough sanctions against Iran due to Tehran’s clampdown on the nationwide protests and its military supplies to Russia, Joseph Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy and Security Affairs, told reporters on Monday.
The top diplomat made this statement upon his arrival at a meeting of EU Council foreign ministers.
"We are going to approve a very tough package of sanctions. [The EU] will take any action we can to support young women and peaceful demonstrators," Borrel vowed.
"The sanctions [are] to be adopted against Iran today will be imposed both due to humanitarian reasons, and Iran’s support for Russia," he added.
"Iran continues saying that they have not been delivering drones to Russia after the start of the war and they do not plan to send rockets to Russia. Let’s see," Borell said.
He also touched upon the recent execution of two people in Iran.
"All Friday evening, I had a long conversation with the Foreign Affairs Minister of Iran. You can imagine we certainly talked about these executions. I expressed the concern of the European Union and the condemnation," Borell told reporters.
According to preliminary information, the EU intends to add a number of Iranian citizens and organizations to the European Union’s Iran blacklist. Meanwhile, as previously reported by a diplomatic source in Brussels, the EU intends to continue diplomatic efforts to prevent the creation of nuclear weapons by Tehran.
Iran has been gripped by protests since the funeral of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16. According to the official version, this Kurdish girl was detained by the police for not wearing her headscarf properly. During an interrogation that followed, she suffered a heart attack and died. Social media, however, spread word that Amini had been beaten by police.
In August, the Washington Post published an article that claimed that Iran was shipping drones to Russia. Later, the Biden administration made similar statements. Moscow and Tehran repeatedly debunked these claims. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov castigated such reports as fake news and underscored that the Russian army uses domestically-produced drones.