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LUXEMBOURG (JTA) — In a sharp diplomatic shift, the European Union has decided to stop its so-called "critical dialogue" with Iran and to take a series of measures against the Islamic Republic.

The E.U. move this week came as the American Jewish Committee called on Iran's trading partners in Europe and Asia to cease all trade with the nation it said "not only supports terrorism throughout the world but orders terror as an instrument of national policy."

In a full-page ad in Wednesday's New York Times, the AJCommittee applauded the United States' "tough stand" against Iran, but added that "too many other nations, no less aware of the Iranian record, have sought to profit from business as usual with terrorism's sponsors."

The E.U. decision, announced here after a meeting of the group's 15 foreign ministers, includes a call to suspend high-level meetings between E.U. and Iranian officials.

Graves are vandalized in Russian cemetery

MOSCOW (JTA) — Vandals have desecrated 10 headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Rybinsk, a city of 250,000 located northeast of Moscow.

Each of the desecrated headstones was daubed with a swastika, a skull and crossbones and the word "Jude," German for "Jew."

The Russian Jewish community called on local authorities and the federal public prosecutor to investigate the case.

Rybinsk is located in the Yaroslavl region, whose governor voiced his commitment to counter anti-Semitism after last April's bombing of the Jewish community center in the city of Yaroslavl.