Mehr News Agency – Iranians have taken to the streets across the country to demonstrate their disapproval of US policies on the 40th anniversary of the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran. The rallies started in the capital Tehran at 9:30 AM in front of the former US embassy, which is known as the “den of spies” in Iran. Top Iranian authorities, along with millions of people, are taking part in the rallies.
Nearly 150 foreign photographers and reporters, along with some 2,000 Iranian reporters, have voiced readiness to cover the rallies today. Commander of Iran’s Army Major General Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi will address the ceremony in Tehran on the occasion.
The demonstrators are carrying different banners showing their anger at the US for its belligerent policies against the Iranian nation in the past decades. One of the key slogans of the ongoing rallies is the recent remark of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Alī Ḥoseynī Khamenei who said, “Iran will not hold talks with the US ‘at any level.”
On November 4, 1979, a group of university students took over the US embassy, which they believed had turned into a center of espionage, plotting to overthrow the nascent Islamic Republic, and held 52 American diplomats for 444 days. Documents found at the political mission corroborated claims by the revolutionary students that Washington had been using the compound to hatch plots against Iran.
Anger toward America had already been growing throughout 1979 as Iran’s revolutionary government took hold, but it boiled over in October when the United States took in the ailing shah for medical treatment. The disputes remain today amid the escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington, following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and subsequent sanctions that have hit ordinary Iranians hard.
