Tehran, Iran – The President of Iran says he is ready to revive talks with the world powers, as toughening sanctions aim at forcing Tehran to sharply scale back its nuclear program.

“They’re on the ropes!” said a top Pentagon official. “Let’s invade!” He looked around the restaurant before slowly sitting down and whispering, “sorry, I forgot where I was. Sorry, everyone. Hey, Stan, happy birthday. Sorry about that. Sorry.”

“We will never give in,” said a top Iranian official. “On a totally unrelated topic, we’d like to begin talks to ease sanctions against our country. But back to our original statement: we will die before kneeling to the West. Also, just as an aside, we’d really like to be able to trade with out nations. Anyway, death to America! Wait, no. Help us, America.”

The UN called the announcement “confusing”, “those guys are [expletive deleted]ing crazy. Dude, you know they’re up to something, right? They’re [expletive deleted]ing scary crazy” and “seriously, check for a bomb under your seat. They’d totally do that. [Expletive deleted]ing stupid crazy.”

“Maybe this will be the first step to opening a dialogue between the Middle East and the West,” said a hopeful American. “But we all know that won’t happen. We tried to talk to Saddam for a decade and look how that turned out. Eh, live and learn.”