Baghdad  - Iraq's national security advisor said Sunday that Baghdad wants to "end the issue" of the People's Mujahedin of Iran group living in the country, a month after President Jalal Talabani said he wanted the group deported.

Muwaffaq al-Rubaie did not explicitly threaten to expel the group, but he demanded that they assist Iraq's security forces.

Iraq's government has been increasing pressure on the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), the largest Iranian opposition group whose main base is the Ashraf refugee camp, 60 kilometres north of Baghdad.

It was originally set up during the Iran-Iraq war to give shelter to opponents of the then regime of Iran's late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Al-Rubaie told the semi-official al-Iraqia television channel that 3,418 PMOI members at the Ashraf camp "are not cooperating with our forces and declining security information" about the organisation's members.

Talabani last month said the constitution prohibited the presence of foreign militants in Iraq. He also referred to the group as a terrorist organisation which had aided Saddam Hussein against the Iraqi people.

After the ousting of Saddam Hussein, the group lost its main supporter. US forces in Iraq continued protecting the PMOI, until the summer of 2008, when their responsibility was handed over to the Iraqi army.

The US, Iraq and Iran consider PMOI a terrorist organization, as had the European Union until the end of January, when the EU Council of Ministers agreed to remove the PMOI from the EU terrorism list.

The PMOI on Saturday had issued a statement calling for the intervention of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to prevent any expulsion. "Residents of Ashraf city have been living in Iraq for more than 20 years," said the statement. dpa