如何返回包含子列表的列表中的重复元素？

由于@Alex 提到了解“扁平列表”，我想出了解决方案：

假设有一个列表列表或一个包含子列表的列表：

import collections
countries = ['pakistan', 'india', 'iran', 'china', 'afghanistan', ['pakistan', 'india'], ['china', 'pakistan']]

def flatten_list(c_list):
"""
function to convert list of lists into flat list.
"""
  result = []
  for country in c_list:
      if isinstance(country, collections.Iterable) and not isinstance(country, (str, bytes)):
          result.extend(flatten_list(country))
      else:
          result.append(country)
  return result

def list_of_duplicates(flat_list):
"""
function to get duplicate entries and removing single entries
"""

    new_list = flat_list
    for e in set(new_list):
        new_list.remove(e)
    return list(set(new_list))


  result = list_of_duplicates(flatten_list(countries)) #desired result