UANI Applauds U.K. Security Minister Tom Tugendhat And New U.K. Iran Sanctions Regime

(New York, N.Y.) – United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace released the following statement today after the United Kingdom’s Minister of State for Security Tom Tugendhat made comments highlighting that London is dealing with an “Iranian regime using actions that would be more normally associated with terrorist groups…what we’re seeing is a new form of state threat.” The U.K. government also recently unveiled plans for a new sanctions regime, giving it greater powers to target decision-makers in Iran for hostile activities.  

“I applaud Minister Tugendhat for his leadership on Iran policy and recognition of the emerging threat that the Islamic Republic’s transnational repression poses to Western democracies. These matters have been handled solely as law enforcement cases for too long. But now, the United Kingdom is signaling it will develop more innovative policy tools to tackle this problem. Since 2022, there have been more than 15 credible threats by the Iranian regime to kill or kidnap British or U.K.-based individuals.  

“But the United Kingdom needs to do more. It should heed the calls of members of the Iranian diaspora from around the world and the brave Iranian people inside the Islamic Republic to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. Combined with the new sanctions regime in the United Kingdom, such steps would be force multipliers in the existing European restrictive measures architecture. 

“The U.S. government must do more as well. These plots are acts of war. The Islamic Republic is engaging in state terrorism on NATO soil. To deter Tehran, there must be more robust deterrence, including kinetic action as appropriate.” 

To read UANI’s policy recommendations for the United Kingdom, please click here. 

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