BEIRUT: The Gulf Cooperation Council declared Hezbollah a "terrorist organization" Wednesday in an unprecedented move signaling a further deterioration of Lebanon-Gulf ties.

In a statement posted to its website, the six-member GCC said the decision was made "as a result of hostile acts by elements of [Hezbollah-linked] militias to recruit young men from GCC member states to carry out terrorist acts."

It also accused Hezbollah of backing groups to smuggle weapons and explosives into GCC countries, and inciting "sedition and disorder."

The six members of the GCC are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

The designation comes one day after Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah ripped into Saudi Arabia over its recent moves targeting Lebanon, and accused the oil-rich kingdom for the first time of direct responsibility over car bomb attacks in the country.

Last month, Riyadh announced it was halting $4 billion in military aid to Lebanon, citing positions taken by Lebanese officials it deemed did not represent the "brotherly" relations between the two countries.

Days later, all of the GCC countries with the exception of Oman issued travel warnings against Lebanon and urged their citizens to leave the country, citing safety concerns.

Hezbollah's rivals in Lebanon immediately blamed the group for the moves, citing its strong rhetoric against Gulf policies, particularly regarding the Saudi war in Yemen, support for Syrian rebel groups, and military intervention to put down Bahrain's 2011 uprising.

In his televised speech Tuesday, Nasrallah rejected the notion that Lebanon was unsafe, describing the Gulf moves as part of a campaign to pressure the country into silencing Hezbollah's criticism of Riyadh.

In its statement issued Wednesday, the GCC also cited Hezbollah's intervention in Syria, and its alleged roles in the Iraq and Yemen conflicts, as motivation for its decision.

Yemen's Saudi-backed government last week accused Hezbollah of having a physical presence inside the country to train Houthi rebels and facilitate cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Nasrallah did not directly respond to this accusation in his speech Tuesday, but said his only "crime" was to speak out against the Saudi-led war launched in Yemen one year ago.

Hezbollah did not react to the GCC's move Wednesday to list it as a terrorist group, but has in the past brushed off similar actions or designations as attempts to tarnish the party's image.

Future Movement head Saad Hariri, Hezbollah's chief local rival, said Wednesday that the group brought the terror designation onto itself through its roles in Syria and other parts of the country.

However, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, a Future Movement member, rejected a statement issued later in the day during a meeting of Arab interior ministers in Tunis over its designation of Hezbollah as a terror group.