Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Ayatollah Ali KhameneiReuters

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared on Wednesday night that the Islamic Republic successfully resisted “unprecedented, strong” US sanctions, Reuters reported.

Khamenei’s comments were made in a speech broadcast on state TV in honor of Iran’s new year.

The Supreme Leader also said that economic hardship and the fall of the currency remain top problems and that the government should confront these issues by boosting production.

US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last May and later reimposed the sanctions on Iran that were frozen as part of the deal, causing the Islamic Republic to feel the pressure economically.

The sanctions have partly led to a weaker rial currency in Iran that has fed into higher inflation.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said that Iran will expand its ties with nations equally tired of “bullying” by the United States, calling the US sanctions “unprecedented, inhumane and illegal”.

Germany, France and Britain, which did not agree with Trump’s decision to leave the deal, have been scrambling to prevent a collapse of the agreement.

The EU recently introduced a trade mechanism that would bypass US sanctions on Iran, in a bid to save the 2015 deal.

Khamenei has continuously lashed out at the US. Last month, he indicated that the slogan “Death to America”, which Iranians regularly shout at rallies, is directed at Trump and US leaders, and not the American nation.

Earlier in the year, the Supreme Leader lambasted US officials' approach to Iran as irrational, describing them as “first-class idiots."