Iran’s currency has hit an all-time low amidst a worsening financial crisis brought upon by U.S.-led sanctions. On Monday, the Iranian rial dropped more than 15 percent to its lowest point yet against the dollar, capping a three-month period that’s seen its overall value drop 57 percent. The prices of basic food staples in Iran are said to be rising by the day since a new round of Western sanctions took effect in July. At a public event in Washington on Monday, Thomas Pickering, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and under secretary of state, criticized the sanctions, saying: “We issue licenses for sales of food and medicine to Iran, but it is not legal for them to pay for it.” Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said his government hasn’t wavered from its renouncement of nuclear weapons.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi: “If any country, any country, including Iran, uses weapons of mass destruction, that is the end of the validity, eligibility, legality — whatever, you name it — of that government. Weapons of mass destruction, as we said, is against humanity. It’s
something that is not at all acceptable.”