The United States is "not seeking dialogue" and has rejected an offer from Iran for stricter nuclear inspections in exchange for removing the sanctions on Iran, Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, said, as the U.S. continues with its 'maximum pressure' campaign to choke off all Iranian oil exports.
"If the US is really seeking an agreement... Iran can make the additional protocol into law (in 2019) and (the US) at the same time bring a plan to the Congress and lift all illegal sanctions," AFP quoted Mousavi as saying at a news conference this week.
"But as we predicted it was rejected by them, because we knew that they are not for talks or an agreement that would yield a proper result," Mousavi added.
The Iranian proposal came from Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif during his visit to New York earlier this month, according to the foreign ministry's spokesman.
Mousavi also said "Dialogue and negotiation can be held when we have a certain agenda in place and when we could get some tangible and practical results out of it."
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that "I recently offered to travel to Tehran and speak directly to the Iranian people. The regime hasn't accepted my offer."
Speaking to Kevin Cirilli of Bloomberg, Secretary Pompeo said:
"I'd like a chance to go not do propaganda, but speak the truth to the Iranian people about what it is their leadership has done and how it has harmed Iran. I think the reason they won't permit that to happen is because they know the truth as well."
According to Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Mousavi, as carried by the Tehran Times, Pompeo's offer was "a passive move, in which we do not see any honesty and seriousness. It is similar to their rhetoric in the past two years about holding talks, while we are certain that they are not after a serious agreement."
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More