European Union foreign ministers slapped sanctions on more than 180 Iranian companies and individuals Thursday over Tehran’s refusal to meet international demands to halt sensitive nuclear work.
The ministers also agreed to continue working on extra punitive measures that could target Iran’s vital energy sector, a diplomat said. Britain and Germany called for sanctions to financially isolate Iran as EU foreign ministers gathered to consider tough new measures against Tehran due to fresh concerns over its 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.
German counterpart Guido Westerwelle said the aim of sanctions “is to dry up Iran’s financial sources.”
The ministers slapped an assets freeze and travel ban on a further 143 Iranian companies and 37 people. But they remain divided over extending the blacklist to the country’s oil sector or freezing the assets of it’s central bank.
Britain, France and Germany and Sweden favour oil sanctions, but with Spain, Greece and Italy significantly dependent on oil from Iran “there will be no oil sanctions” announced Thursday, an EU diplomat said. “I’m sure there’ll be a discussion” on oil sanctions, Hague said. “I think there will be a variety of views, I dont know what the outcome of that is going to be.”
Sweden Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said he would argue in favour of an embargo on Iranian crude, which in 2010 amounted to 5.8 percent of total EU imports, making the country the fifth supplier at the time after Russia, Norway, Libya and Saudi Arabaia. Of that total, Spain accounted for 14.6 percent, Greece for 14 and Italy for 13.1 percent.
Meanwhile, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Thursday called for a “satisfactory outcome” in the complex relocation of 3,400 Iranian dissidents due to be expelled from a camp in Iraq.
As EU foreign ministers prepared to discuss controversial efforts to close Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad, Ashton said she had held talks on the issue both with US authorities and with UN officials monitoring Iraq’s closure of the camp. Camp Ashraf has been home to members of the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) since the 1980s. But Iraq is intent on closing it by year’s end in what PMOI leaders say is a plot designed by Tehran to eliminate the dissidents.
PMOI exiles in Europe, who staged a demonstration outside EU offices Thursday, have enlisted the support of around 100 European parliamentarians who have warned of the impending “slaughter” of the dissidents failing the presence of UN or US forces to protect them. Iraq says it is exercising its sovereignty in closing the facility which has been home to the exiles for 30 years. Ashton is to ask ministers how many refugees each country can take, with others going to the United States, Canada and Australia.
Meanwhile, Iran’s charge d’affaires in Rome, Mehdi Akouchekian, was summoned by Italy’s foreign ministry following the “intolerable” attack by protesters on Britain’s embassy in Tehran. The Italian government expressed its “strong condemnation” of the “violent and intolerable” attack and stressed its “solidarity with the British government,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “Italy will evaluate, along with other European Union countries, how to react to make sure such an episode will not happen again,” it said.
Iran frees 11 held for storming British compound: Iran has released 11 protesters detained for storming the British diplomatic compounds in Tehran, a report said on Thursday, after Iran’s top lawmaker described Britain’s response as “unjustifiable.”
The protesters were released late Wednesday after being arrested during the temporary seizure of the British diplomatic residence in Tehran on Tuesday. The Iranian foreign ministry expressed regret over the incident, and a senior police commander was quoted as saying that a number of protesters had been arrested and others were being sought.
