A senior cleric delivering a nationally televised sermon urged a crowd that included former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the head of Iran’s nuclear energy organization to observe sexual piety, aid the poor and support Iran’s development of nuclear power. “This technology is progressing our nation,” Ayatollah Imami Kashani said at weekly Friday prayers at the University of Tehran. “Our enemies are against such progress.” The sermon, like other speeches and television appearances by senior leaders recently, offered few signs the government is conditioning Iranians for any major limitations on nuclear work. But in talks Iran is pursuing with world powers, U.S. and European officials are aiming to significantly scale back Iran’s nuclear capabilities to guard against development of nuclear weapons—something Tehran denies that it seeks. To reach a deal that would ease international sanctions, the clerical leaders will have to make significant concessions. But by defining the program as […]