The European Union is expected to strengthen sanctions against Iran at a gathering of foreign ministers today to punish Tehran for its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Diplomats predicted that EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels would agree an embargo on Iranian oil imports and sanctions against Iran’s central bank.

Officials are also discussing expanded punitive measures against Belarus, where a crackdown has followed a flawed presidential election more than a year ago.

After the meeting was under way, RFE/RL’s Brussels correspondent was told by a council source that participants had agreed on sanctions against the Iranian Central Bank and eight other entities, mostly in the transport sector.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on her way into the meeting that “the pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request” to resume talks on the country’s disputed nuclear program.

“We will be discussing and finalizing additional sanctions [on Iran], particularly focused on the central bank and on oil exports. But I do want to, again, reiterate that this is part of trying to get a twin-track approach. The pressure of sanctions in designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table and meet.”

Iran says its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, but Western powers and many international officials fear it is aimed at producing atomic weapons.

Four rounds of UN sanctions have targeted Iran’s nuclear activities, and the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently accused Tehran of work “specific to nuclear weapons.”

The EU also plans to widen its sanctions against Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime in Belarus. It has so far frozen personal assets and imposed visa bans on more than 200 individuals linked to the regime after the violent crackdown on demonstrators that ensued after the flawed presidential election in 2010.

Source : RFE/RL