European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Saturday that the EU supports an Iraqi proposal to hold a peace conference to ease tensions between the United States and Iran.

“We support completely the idea of regional conference that Iraq is proposing and the EU is fully behind that and fully ready to support this idea,” Xinhua quoted her as saying during a joint press conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Hakim in Baghdad.

Mogherini said that she held talks with the Iraqi leaders and discussed the need to ease tensions and to pursue means to hold dialogue to avoid serious consequences of miscalculations.

Tension between Tehran and Washington has increased since Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018 and introduced harsh sanctions against Iran.

Tensions entered a new stage since April when the U.S. designated the IRGC (part of the Iranian military) as a terrorist organization, announced that it does no renew waivers for the remaining buyers of the Iranian oil, and started beefing up its military presence in the region, particularly in the Persian Gulf.

The tension escalated after the IRGC shot down an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone on June 20 after it breached Iran’s airspace.

NA/PA