EU to tighten Iran sanctions
Britain urged Europe to isolate Iran financially as EU foreign ministers gathered to agree sweeping new measures against Tehran due to fresh concerns over its secret nuclear programme.
Thanking European Union countries for their "emphatic support" following the storming of Britain's embassy in Iran, Foreign Secretary William Hague said "I hope we will agree today additional measures that will be an intensification of the economic pressure on Iran.
"Peaceful legitimate economic pressure particularly to increase the isolation of the Iranian financial sector," he added.
Backing moves to tighten the financial noose, German counterpart Guido Westerwelle said the aim must be "to dry up Iran's financial sources."
Pressed into action following the publication of a new report on Iran's contested nuclear activity, the ministers are expected to slap an assets freeze and travel ban on a further 143 Iranian companies and 37 people.
The measures will concern "those associated with or providing support to Iran's proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities," an EU document said.
Much of the international community fears Iran's nuclear programme masks a drive for a weapons capability, though Tehran says it serves peaceful civilian energy and medical purposes only.
Urging the EU's 27 states "to ratchet up sanctions" in the light of the attacks on the British embassy, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who leads global talks on Iran's nuclear issue, said it was time "to make it clear to Iran that we are very serious."
But Europe remains divided over extending the blacklist to the country's oil sector or freezing the assets of its central bank.
Britain, France and Germany and Sweden favour a bar on buying oil from Iran, but with Spain, Greece and Italy significantly dependent on this resource "there will be no oil sanctions" announced Thursday, an EU diplomat told AFP.
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