TEHRAN – A senior Russian official on Tuesday hailed the “huge contribution” of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) to the battle against ISIL terrorists.

Sergey Naryshkin Naryshkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, said the IRGC “has made a huge contribution to the fight against ISIL in Syria and Iraq.”

Naryshkin also slammed the U.S. government for imposing sanctions on other countries.

The U.S. is introducing new sanctions spontaneously and impulsively without taking into account even the opinion of its closest allies, the Russian official remarked, Mehr reported.

“It’s no secret that over the past several years they [sanctions] have become a favorite method of the U.S. policy,” Naryshkin said.

“What is especially alarming is that the restrictions are introduced absolutely arbitrarily, spontaneously and impulsively.”

“Their initiators do not take into account the long-term consequences and the opinion of the closest economic partners,” Naryshkin stressed.

As an example, he cited the U.S. decision to include IRGC on its list of terrorist organizations.

Back in April, the IRGC was formally blacklisted by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization.

In response to the move, Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), issued a statement declaring the United States a “terrorist government”, and blacklisted “CENTCOM and all its affiliates a terrorist group”.

MH/PA