Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday that the world must stop Iran quickly before it reaches the point where even a military attack would not stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Barak said, “The situation is urgent, because the Iranians deliberately drifting to what we call a ‘resistant zone’ in which nothing will not block them.”

Barak called for further harsher sanctions against Iranian banks and its oil industry “so that we all know soon enough if the Iranians are willing to give up their nuclear weapons program.”

Barak’s comments come after earlier this week, the European Union slapped an embargo on Iranian oil. The sanctions would introduce a gradual ban on buying Iranian oil and petrochemicals, and that EU members would have to halt imports completely by July 1, 2012.

Hours later, the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions against Iran’s Bank Tejarat, the third largest bank in the Islamic Republic.

Bank Tejarat is accused of aiding Iranian programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including moving tens of millions of dollars to help a state-run agency acquire uranium.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama said his administration has “imposed the toughest sanctions ever” on Iran.

“They had a lot of bite. The Iranian regime is feeling them,” Obama told ABC News. “And, ultimately, I hope that we can resolve this through diplomatic means. But we’re not taking any options off the table.”

(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)