European Union foreign ministers agreed on Thursday to extend sanctions to 180 people and companies directly involved in the country's disputed nuclear program and to begin work on further sanctions.

"The Council agreed to broaden existing sanctions by examining, in close coordination with international partners, additional measures including measures aimed at severely affecting the Iranian financial system, in the transport sector, in the energy sector," they said in a statement.

The Iranian government says its nuclear program is for energy use only while some in the international community suspect it may be developing nuclear weapons. Last month a United Nations report provided new evidence suggesting that Iran may be developing nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems.

The ministers also said they were "outraged by the attack on the British Embassy in Tehran and utterly condemns it," adding that it was a violation of the Vienna Convention requiring Iran to protect foreign embassies.

A group of protesters smashed windows, burned a British flag and looted offices at the embassy in Tehran on Tuesday in response to Britain's recent sanctions on Iran's financial sector.

No agreement on oil embargo

The EU is deeply split on whether sanctions should include Iran's oil industry. EU members receive 450,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day, some 18 percent of Iran's exports.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had proposed an oil import ban and was supported by Britain. Greece, one of Europe's biggest importers of Iranian oil and saddled with a mountain of debt, was resistant to the idea and raised "a certain number of concerns" about the embargo, according to French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.

"We have to ... work with different partners so that the interruption of Iranian deliveries can be compensated by an increase in production of other countries," Juppe said.

The EU's top energy official, however, indicated an effective oil import ban may still be a way off.

"We need a common position of all European Union member states," Energy Commission Guenther Oettinger told the news agency Reuters.

Author: Holly Fox (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
Editor: Michael Lawton