European Union foreign ministers on monday approved a regulation implementing United Nations sanctions against Iran after it refused to halt uranium enrichment, officials said.

The sanctions are targeted against individuals and organizations involved in Tehran's disputed nuclear and missile programs, which the West suspects are aimed at making nuclear weapons.

The EU list of individuals, which was not immediately made public, goes beyond persons identified in UN resolutions.

	Advertisement

EU officials said the regulation and a common political position opened the way for further names to be added to the list of persons denied entry to the 27-nation EU and whose assets are frozen.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday told Spanish television that Iran wishes to remain within the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and would resist any UN sanctions peacefully.

"Up until now our activities have been within a framework of laws... We are interested in continuing on that path. We do not want to abandon the framework of laws," Ahmadinejad said after being asked by TVE whether Iran could abandon the treaty.

In the live interview from Tehran, Ahmadinejad also indicated that Iran would prefer peaceful resistance to UN Security Council sanctions aimed at its nuclear program.

"We are obliged to defend ourselves. A nation has this logical and legitimate right, on the basis of dialogue and peaceful defense," he said.

"There are some countries that want a monopoly of production of nuclear fuel, and I think that's the root of all the problems," he said.

Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, will meet with top Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani in Ankara Wednesday to see if Iran can be persuaded to halt uranium enrichment in exchange for negotiations over economic incentives.

"I am going to meet him Wednesday ... in Ankara [to] see if we can move to a negotiation," Solana said on arrival at the EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg.

His spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said Solana hoped the talks would lead to the resumption of full-scale negotiations between Iran and the international community over its nuclear program.

Gallach reiterated an Iranian freeze on enrichment work was a precondition for such full-scale talks. In exchange for such a freeze, she said, the international community would suspend its U.N. sanctions on Iran.

"We are encouraged, despite the sanctions which are fully in place," Gallach said. "We hope this opportunity on Wednesday will be fully used."

Ahmadinejad, speaking on TVE, said Europe should adopt a separate stance to the United States in the talks.

"If the European Union wants to translate the words of the United States, we can go directly to the United States," he said.

In the bid to push Iran to drop some aspects of its nuclear program, Solana is negotiating on behalf of permanent UN Security Council members France, Britain, Russia, the U.S. and China, as well as Germany.

The international community wants Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment work before any talks can be held on a package of economic and other incentives for Iran, including assistance for its nuclear power generation program.

Iran has started feeding small amounts of uranium gas into centrifuges that can enrich it to weapons-grade level and is already running more than 1,300 of the machines, according to an International Atomic Energy Agency document obtained last week by The Associated Press.

The IAEA has protested Iran's decision to prevent agency inspectors from visiting the country's heavy water reactor, which, when built, will produce plutonium.

Enriched uranium and plutonium can both be used for the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

Iran denies it plans to produce nuclear weapons, saying it only wants to generate energy.