EU approves new Iran sanctions

BRUSSELS, June 17 (UPI) -- European Union leaders agreed Thursday to adopt tough new sanctions on Iran, matching those announced a day earlier in Washington, officials said.

At the summit meeting in Brussels, leaders said the specifics of the EU sanctions would not be released until next month at the earliest, The New York Times reported. Foreign ministers of the EU member states are to meet in July.

In their statement, the leaders called the sanctions "inevitable." They said they would target "key sectors of the gas and oil industry with prohibition of new investment, technical assistance and transfers of technologies."

The sanctions are also likely to include denial of visas to members of the Revolutionary Guards.

"The European Council deeply regrets that Iran has not taken the many opportunities which have been offered to it to remove the concerns of the international community over the nature of the Iranian nuclear program," the statement said. "Under these circumstances, new restrictive measures have become inevitable."

The U.S. and EU sanctions go beyond those approved recently by the U.N. Security Council.