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Pressure grows for Iran sanctions over atomic plans   (Reuters):TEHRAN - International pressure for new sanctions against Iran grew on Monday after Tehran announced more moves to expand nuclear fuel production and enrichment plants, heightening Western fears it wants to make atom bombs.The United States and France led calls for what would be a fourth set of sanctions against Iran, while a senior lawmaker in Russia, which in the past has urged talks rather than punishment, said economic sanctions should be considered. Among the big powers only China, which can block any U.N. sanctions with its veto on the Security Council, has so far remained opposed to punishing the major oil exporter. The calls for sanctions came after Iran, which says its nuclear program is to make electricity rather than bombs, said it would start making higher-grade reactor fuel on Tuesday and add 10 uranium enrichment plants over the next year. Possible sanctions targets include Iran's central bank, the Revolutionary Guards who Western powers say are key to Iran's nuclear program, shipping firms and its energy sector, Western diplomats say. Conditions set by Iran regarding a big powers plan for it to swap low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel for a medical reactor, together with its latest defiant moves, appear to have hardened Western attitudes. The five veto-wielding U.N. Security Council members -- United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- plus Germany proposed the fuel swap plan. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who called on Sunday for targeted measures aimed at the government of Iran rather than its people, appealed again for sanctions on Monday. "We must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue. The only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together," Gates said in Paris. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner agreed. "The only thing that we can do, alas, is apply sanctions given that negotiations are not possible," he said. In Russia, a member of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party whose statements generally reflect Kremlin policy, also spoke of sanctions. "The international community should swiftly react ... in order to send Tehran a new signal of its intent to react with serious measures, right up to a strengthening of economic sanctions," said a spokeswoman for Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's lower house.