BICOM

The European Union (EU) is expected to approve a major new set of sanctions against Iran today, in an effort to curb Tehran’s nuclear development with talks so far having yielded little progress.

Three rounds of talks so far between Iran and the P5+1 nations (UK, France, Germany, United States, Russia and China) have failed to produce an agreement from Tehran on abandoning its enrichment of uranium to 20 per cent, considered a major step in producing an atom bomb.

Existing sanctions, such as an EU oil embargo and US financial restrictions, are already seemingly having an impact on Iran. Earlier this month, riots broke out in Tehran in protest against the collapse of the country’s rial currency, which has lost nearly two thirds of its value against the dollar in the last year.

This appears to have set the tone for the UK, France and Germany to persuade its EU partners to adopt a new list of restrictions against Iran at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg today. Speaking ahead of the meeting, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle yesterday told Reuters, “In the last couple of months Iran has not budged on any of the key issues and we must therefore increase the pressure through sanctions.”

The new set of sanctions will reportedly include a ban on financial transactions, apart from some enabling humanitarian aid, food and medicine purchases. Iranian trade will be further restricted through a new ban on Europeans extending short-term trade guarantees. The new EU measures will also apparently include a ban on imports of natural gas from Iran and a similar restriction on the sale of metals crucial to steel-making and shipbuilding, in an effort to curb Iranian oil exports.