Israel wants Rome's help in blacklisting Iran's Guards

(JERUSALEM) - Israel has asked Italy for help in getting the European Union to list the elite Revolutionary Guards of arch-foe Iran as a "terrorist group," a senior minister said on Tuesday.

"During my meeting (on Monday) with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, I asked him that Italy pass a law placing the Revolutionary Guards on the list of terror organisations, with a view that the European Union follows suit," Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told public radio.

"I reminded him that he has already exercised his influence to put Hamas on this list," he said, referring to a EU decision in 2003 to list the Palestinian Islamist movement as a terror group.

Israel considers Iran to be its top enemy due to repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state is doomed to be "wiped off the map" and questioning the scale of the Holocaust.

Widely considered the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, Israel along with the West suspects Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, charges Tehran denies.