Iran's Rouhani mocking President Donald Trump, says US 'lying' about talks offer

Iranian president is mocking President Donald Trump, going so far as to say that the White House is “afflicted by mental retardation” following the new US sanction on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his associates on Monday.
Rouhani speaking live in a televised address on Tuesday said the decision meant the “certain failure” of the White House’s efforts.

He also criticised U.S. officials for wanting to sanction Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who was the architect of the Iran's Nuclear deal with world powers.

Iran’s president says the new U.S. sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader and others are “outrageous and idiotic.”

The comments by Hassan Rouhani come a day after the Trump administration sanctioned Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his associates.

An exasperated Rouhani said: “You sanction the foreign minister simultaneously with a request for talks?”

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton says President Donald Trump is open to real negotiations and “all that Iran needs to do is walk through that open door”

Bolton spoke at a high-profile trilateral security summit in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

He says American envoys are surging across the region in hopes of finding a path out of escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran but that the silence of the Islamic Republic has been “deafening.”

Bolton says: “There is simply no evidence that Iran has made the strategic decision to renounce nuclear weapons.”

His comments alongside his Israeli and Russian counterparts come after Iran slammed the Trump administration over new U.S. sanctions targeting its supreme leader. 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the measures spell a “permanent closure” to diplomacy between the U.S and Iran.