Iran says U.S. offer to talk is 'hollow'

Last Sunday, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said that the Trump administration was prepared for unconditional talks with Iran, but Tehran made clear on Saturday that they aren't buying it, as tensions between the two countries refuse to cool.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi said that the new sanctions the U.S. placed on Iran's largest petrochemical holding group, Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co., on Friday prove that the offer for talks was not genuine. The U.S. placed sanctions on PGPIC for "indirectly supporting" the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite Iranian military force that the U.S. recently deemed a terrorist organization.

"It was only necessary to wait one week until the claim of the president of America about talks with Iran were proven to be hollow," Mousavi said in a statement. "The American policy of maximum pressure is a defeated policy."

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