EU adds about 180 names to Iran sanctions list

EU governments agreed today to add about 180 people and entities to its sanctions on Iran, an EU official said.

The ratcheting up of pressure on Iran follows a November 8 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency which presented intelligence suggesting Iran had worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be secretly carrying out related research, something Tehran denies.

Britain urged earlier European Union foreign ministers to step up economic pressure on Iran today over its nuclear programme, but uncertainty remained over whether new EU sanctions would go as far as an oil embargo.

Britain, whose embassy in Tehran was stormed by protesters on Tuesday, was expected to lead the push for tighter sanctions after a report by the UN nuclear agency suggested Iran has worked on designing an atom bomb.

"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," Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters.

Britain shut Iran's embassy in London and expelled all its staff yesterday, saying the storming of the British mission in Tehran could not have taken place without consent from Iranian authorities.

Hague denied a link between the embassy storming and Thursday's meeting in Brussels, when the ministers will map out the EU's response to the report last month from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"I stress that the measures I hope we will agree today are related to the Iranian nuclear programme. These are not measures in reaction to what has happened to our embassy," he told BBC radio.