U.S. Seeks to Tighten Iran Sanctions

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, meets a group of U.S. church ministers in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2007. Iran's hard-line president told a group of American ministers that his fellow citizens do not have anything against Americans, but oppose U.S. policy in the region, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. "The Iranian nation does not hate or oppose the American people," the agency quoted Ahmadinejad, as saying during a meeting with American ministers on a trip to improve relations between the peoples of Iran and the United States. A picture of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini hangs on the wall. An unidentified translator sits at second right. (AP Photo/ISNA, Amir Pourmand) (Amir Pourmand - AP)

WASHINGTON -- The United States wants world powers to agree to a moderate tightening of U.N. sanctions against Iran because of its continued work on its nuclear program, the State Department said Monday.

Senior representatives from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany are in London to discuss how to respond to Iran's failure to respect a U.N. deadline to halt its uranium enrichment work.

"I would expect the nature of the resolution to be incremental," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "This is designed to proportionally increase pressure on Tehran."

McCormack said limited economic sanctions against Iran implemented in December had produced surprising results.

"It started a very public discussion in Iran about the wisdom of their current course of defying the international system," he told reporters.

In December, the U.N. ordered countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs, and to freeze assets of 10 key Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs.

A British diplomat attending Monday's meeting said the participants were expected to consider trimming export credits for companies that trade with Iran and restricting arms exports to Iran. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed Thursday that Iran had ignored a Security Council ultimatum to freeze enrichment _ a possible pathway to nuclear arms _ and had instead expanded its program.

The U.S. and its European allies have been urging Iran to halt enrichment and re-enter negotiations. Iran insists its only wants to produce fuel for nuclear power.