European leaders meeting in Brussels have decided to impose new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, going further than the UN's latest punitive measures aimed at putting pressure on Tehran.

The new EU sanctions would include a unique ban on new investment, technical assistance and transfers of technologies to Iran's key gas and oil industry.

Thursday's move came a day after the US Treasury expanded its Iranian blacklist to include another of the country's state-controlled banks, a shipping line and more members of the revolutionary guard corp.

Russia, which last week approved the fourth set of sanctions to be imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council, has sharply criticised the EU and Washington for imposing the additional sanctions.

'Harmful' move

Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, called the latest moves "harmful" and warned the West it risked losing Moscow's support for concerted efforts to rein in Tehran's nuclear activity.

"We are extremely disappointed that neither the United States nor the European Union is heeding our calls to refrain from such steps," Russia's Interfax and Itar-Tass news agencies quoted Ryabkov as saying.

In the declaration, the EU leaders expressed their "deepening concerns about Iran's nuclear programme".

Tim Friend, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Brussels, said: "The draft says that it expresses deep regrets about Iran not having taken the many opportunities to assuage international concerns about its nuclear programme.

"They particularly want to add more visa bans and asset freezes on the Islamic revolutionary guards corps which, of course, control a lot of the economy in Iran.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is purely for civilian purposes, but Israel and Western powers fear it may be trying to develop nuclear weapons.