Foreign ministers from all the 27 European Union (EU) member
states agreed on Monday in Luxembourg to introduce sanctions
against Iran over its nuclear ambitions in line with a UN Security
Council resolution, an EU spokeswoman said on Monday.
"The EU goes a little bit tougher than the UN sanctions," said
Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier
Solana, without giving details.
"We include more names," she added.
EU foreign ministers, who met in Luxembourg on Monday, also
agreed on a blacklist of people and organizations linked to Iran's
nuclear industry, based on UN Security Council sanctions passed in
December.
The full list of the Iranian persona non grata subject to a
travel ban and assets freeze will be published in the official EU
gazette on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Foreign ministers also agreed in principle to apply a second UN
resolution against Iran, which was passed last month and introduces
fresh sanctions against Tehran if it fails to suspend its uranium
enrichment activities within 60 days.
The latter resolution, whose details EU ministers will outline
at a later date, involves notably restriction on arms sales.
Earlier on Monday, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana
confirmed that he would meet this week with Iran's top nuclear
negotiator Ali Larijani in Turkey.
Iran rejected on Sunday Western calls for a suspension of its
sensitive nuclear activities.
The United States, which accuses Iran of seeking to make nuclear
weapons, has never ruled out the option of military action to bring
Tehran to heel. Iran insists its nuclear drive is solely for
generating energy.
Iran has shown no sign of yielding in the stand-off, saying that
its uranium enrichment operations have reached an industrial level
and announcing it wishes to install over 50,000 uranium enriching
centrifuges at a plant in Natanz.
(Xinhua News Agency April 24, 2007)
