Switzerland on Saturday extended travel restrictions on senior Zimbabwean officials as part of efforts by Western countries to force President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party to agree to political reforms in the country.

The Swiss Foreign Ministry said it was renewing a set of sanctions slapped on senior officials of Mugabe’s previous regime in March 2002.

“The measures include a prohibition on supply of military equipment and materials which might be used for internal repression and targeted financial sanctions such as freezing of assets owned by the 160-plus individuals in Switzerland,” the ministry said in a statement.

Individuals on the sanctions list are also prohibited from entering Switzerland or transit through the country.

The EU as well as the United States, Australia and New Zealand have maintained visa and financial sanctions against Mugabe’s government since 2002.

Both the EU and the US last month renewed the sanctions against the ZANU PF officials and some companies linked to the party insisting more needed to be done to facilitate reforms in the country.

Mugabe has demanded the complete removal of the sanctions, blaming them for the country’s near-economic collapse over the last decade.

The veteran leader has also used the sanctions to slow down implementation of a power-sharing pact he signed with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara in 2008.

Mugabe accuses Tsvangirai and his MDC-T party of not doing enough to get their Western allies to remove the sanctions.

His Zanu PF party has since vowed not to make any further concessions to its coalition partners in ongoing inter-party talks until the sanctions are removed.