Iran's supreme leader said the U.S. must lift all sanctions if it wants Iran to return to its commitments to the nuclear deal with Western powers. The remarks by Mahmoud Alavi mark a rare occasion that a government official says Iran could reverse its course on the nuclear program. A 1990s fatwa, or religious edict, by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei states that nuclear weapons are forbidden. AdIsrael has long accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, and the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers put strict limits on Iranian nuclear activities to prevent it from reaching weapons capabilities. Israel, which has been suspected of killing Iranian nuclear scientists over the last decade, has repeatedly declined to comment on the attack.

(Menahem Kahana/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON – The United States hit Iran with new sanctions on Wednesday, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the case that undoing the actions of the Trump administration would be foolish and dangerous. At the same time, Pompeo released a statement titled “The Importance of Sanctions on Iran,” which argued that the Trump administration's moves against Iran made the world safer and should not be reversed. But they come as the administration seeks to ramp up pressure on Iran before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. In an apparent nod to the incoming Biden administration's stated plans to rejoin or renegotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump withdrew from, Pompeo said sanctions imposed against Iran had been “extraordinarily effective" in reducing the threat from the country. “These sanctions are a critical tool of national security to preserve the safety of the region and to protect American lives.”