EU adopts tough new sanctions on Iran

European Voice. Com, July26, 2010
Measures affect trade, financial services, energy and transport.
The foreign ministers of the European Union today (26 July) adopted sweeping new sanctions against Iran because of the country’s continued defiance of the international community over its uranium-enrichment programme.
The new sanctions target Iranian firms, both public and private, and affect trade, financial services, energy and transport. They also add individuals and companies to lists of entities whose assets are frozen and who cannot travel to the EU. This includes Iranian banks, the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps and the country’s main state-owned shipping line.
Agreement on the sectors to be targeted was reached by EU leaders last month, following a fourth round of sanctions adopted by the United Nations Security Council in June.
The EU measures go far beyond the UN sanctions, as do separate sanctions imposed by the United States earlier in July.
The foreign ministers described the sanctions as a “comprehensive and robust package of measures” whose ultimate goal was to bring Iran back to the negotiating table. They reaffirmed “the longstanding commitment of the European Union to work for a diplomatic solution of the Iranian nuclear issue” and called on Iran to “allay the concerns of the international community about its nuclear programme and agree on a concrete date for talks’ with Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief.
Iran says that its uranium-enrichment programme serves peaceful purposes.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organisation (KMO), which was taken off the EU’s list of terrorist organisations last year, welcomed the sanctions but said that the offer of talks sent the wrong signal to Iran’s regime.