TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran on Sunday hit out at talk of more EU sanctions being applied against it as "irresponsible," singling out Britain for raising the prospect it claimed went against UN nuclear watchdog regulations.Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast issued a statement relayed by state broadcaster IRIB calling Western sanctions "ineffective" and "obsolete." He was reacting to comments made by EU foreign ministers, meeting in Cyprus on Saturday, who said a "growing consensus" was forming to impose new punitive measures on Iran to pressure it further to make concessions on its disputed nuclear programme. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said after the meeting that existing EU sanctions were having "a serious impact" but it was "necessary to increase the pressure on Iran, to intensify sanctions."Britain would urge EU governments to agree a new round of sanctions - targeting the energy sector and trade - at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers in mid-October, a diplomatic source at the meeting told AFP.Hague's German and French counterparts echoed that position, underlining EU frustration that talks this year between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group - Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia and China - had gone nowhere. Mehmanparast homed in on Britain's position, saying: "The recent remarks by the British foreign secretary calling for increasing sanctions against Iran are irresponsible." He said they "violate" International Atomic Energy Agency regulations.He also claimed Hague's remarks sought to undermine Iran's recent hosting of a summit on non-aligned states that supported the Islamic republic's nuclear energy programme as long as it complied with IAEA oversight. UN chief Ban Ki-moon, attending that summit, had urged Iran to abide by IAEA demands for broader inspections and six UN resolutions it has so far ignored demanding it suspend uranium enrichment.The P5+1 harbours suspicions that Iran's nuclear activities include a push to develop an atomic weapon breakout capability. Tensions over the issue have greatly risen in recent months, since the Iran/P5+1 negotiations effectively stalled in June.Israel - the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear weapons power - has threatened to possibly launch imminent air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.The US which has repeated it could also take military action against Iran as a last resort, is arguing with Israel that diplomacy has not yet run its course.Iran insists its nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful and points to edicts from its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describing nuclear weapons as a "great sin."However, the IAEA in its latest report stressed Iran has repeatedly rebuffed its requests to be given access to a military base suspected to have carried out experiments using conventional explosive to test possible nuclear warhead designs. It also said Iran had installed more than 1,000 new uranium enrichment centrifuges in a bomb-proof nuclear bunker in Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, though had not yet switched them on.Meanwhile, Iranian authorities on Sunday advanced different arguments as to why they believed Canada abruptly cut diplomatic ties, pointing the finger at Israeli influence or Tehran's hosting of a recent summit rather than Ottawa's stated reasons. "Canada's action is in line with the interests of the Zionist regime (Israel) as it seeks to boost of its relations with the (Israeli) regime," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told a closed-door session of parliament, according to the Mehr news agency.Canada was also upset that UN chief Ban Ki-moon had attended an August 30-31 summit of non-aligned countries in Tehran, Salehi said, according to the ISNA news agency.Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani told the session, according to the ILNA agency, that "Canada's badly thought-out behaviour shows it is nervous."He said Canada's decision was in response to Iran's "economy of resistance," which officials say is weathering severe Western economic sanctions. Larijani also pointed to the non-aligned summit, saying "Western countries are seeking to portray Iran's hosting of the summit as unconventional."The arguments showed that Iran's authorities saw ulterior motives behind Canada's surprise decision announced on Friday to close its Tehran embassy and to order Iran's diplomatic staff out of Ottawa.Officially, Canada said its step was because it views Iran "as the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today."