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Updated Tuesday, January 24, 2012 1:41 am TWN, By Claire Rosemberg, AFP

In this photo taken on Jan. 18 and released by the U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln transits the Indian Ocean. Amid heightened tensions with Iran, the USS ...

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EU slaps oil embargo on defiant Tehran

BRUSSELS -- The European Union agreed Monday to slap an embargo on Iran's oil exports as the West ramped up pressure on Tehran's suspect nuclear drive and urged it to return to the negotiating table.

“There is a political agreement on an oil embargo,” said a diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity after early morning talks between ambassadors of the 27 EU nations, held as foreign ministers converged on Brussels for talks.

The ministers, who also agreed to toughen sanctions against Syria, are to formally announce the measures against Tehran later Monday.

“Iran continues to defy U.N. resolutions and enriches uranium to 20 percent, for which there is no civilian explanation,” said Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague as he joined the talks.

“It is legitimate for us to increase the pressure on Iran to enter into negotiations with the international community,” Hague added.

The compromise agreement, which follows weeks of difficult talks, provides for an immediate ban on importing Iranian crude and a gradual phase-out of existing contracts between now and July 1, diplomats told AFP.

Greece's dependence on Iranian oil had been holding up an accord on the timing and conditions of the embargo as the financially strapped nation relies on Iran for more than a third of its imports and had struck preferential financial terms with Tehran.

Greece had initially asked for a transition period of up to a year, or even more, and intensive talks have been going on for weeks to find alternative sources and resolve the issue.

Iran sells around 20 percent of its crude to EU nations, with Greece, Spain and Italy the top buyers.

In the toughest measures yet to reduce Iran's ability to fund a nuclear weapons program, the EU ministers are set to also target the country's central bank, petrochemicals and gold.

The measures come amid heightened concerns of confrontation following reports by the U.N. atomic agency, the IAEA, that Tehran is inching ever closer to building a nuclear bomb.

The Pentagon announced that U.S. aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on Sunday passed through the Strait of Hormuz and is now in the Gulf, after Tehran threatened to close the strategic shipping route.

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