Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that the United States is terminating the Treaty of Amity reached with Iran in pre-revolutionary days, calling it an "absolute absurdity" given the tensions between the two countries.

The impetus for the United States tearing up the treaty was a decision earlier Wednesday in the International Court of Justice, which ordered the Trump administration to lift some sanctions on Iran. The top U.N. court, which is in The Hague, does not have the power to enforce its decisions, which are usually ignored by the United States anyway.

"We ought to have pulled out of it decades ago," Pompeo said, calling it "39 years overdue" in a reference to the 1979 revolution in Iran. "Today marked a useful point with the decision that was made this morning from the ICJ. This marked a useful point for us to demonstrate the absolute absurdity of the Treaty of Amity between the United States and the Islamic Republic."