Apr 9, 2019

Baghdad tried to stop Washington from blacklisting Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a "terrorist organisation," Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi said Tuesday, warning that the decision could further destabilise the region.

The United States declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a "terrorist" group on Monday, prompting Tehran to quickly slap US troops with the same designation.

"We tried to stop the American decision. We reached out to all sides, to the US and the Saudis," Abdel Mahdi said during a weekly press conference on Tuesday.

He said he had warned Washington and its ally Riyadh that the move would have "negative repercussions in Iraq and in the region", but stopped short of denouncing it.

Any escalation, he said, "would make us all losers".