US News

Tillerson pushes Saudi Arabia on united front to counter Iran

​Iranian-backed militias and other foreign fighters should pack up and “go home” now that Islamic State ​terrorists have been beaten back in Iraq, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Sunday.

​​“Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against Daesh and ISIS is coming to a close, those militias need to go home. The foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home and allow the Iraqi people to regain control,” Tillerson said at a joint news conference with Saudi ​Arabian ​foreign minister Adel Jubeir.​

He also called for more cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Iraq to counter Iran’s influence in the region and warned European countries not to support the regim​e and its elite Revolutionary Guard.

“We are hoping that European companies, countries and others around the world will join the U.S. as we put in place a sanctions structure to prohibit certain activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard​that foment instability in the region and create destruction in the region,” Tillerson said.

T​he United States fears that Iran, which helped train and fund the Popular Mobilization Forces that helped battle the terror group, will try to expand its sway in the country that has been building since the US invasion in 2003.

Tillerson called on Riyadh and Baghdad to ​strengthen their ties to ​give Iraq​ time to rebuild.​

“We do seek to support, as does the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a whole of Iraq, that is secure and stable and has the ability to stand on its own,” he said. “We believe this will in some ways counter some of the unproductive influences of Iran inside Iraq.”

P​resident Trump has warned that he may scrap a 2015 nuclear deal brokered by former President Obama with Iran, which he has blamed for sowing chaos in the Middle East.

Earlier this month he refused to recertify the accord and sent it to Congress to strengthen many of its provisions and spell out which violations would result in sanctions being reimposed.

​He said if lawmakers can’t come up with a solution​, he will end the agreement.

With wires