Hardliners chant ‘Death to America’ on Iran hostage crisis anniversary
Iranians burn US flags outside the former US embassy in Tehran on November 4, 2013, during a demonstration to mark the 34th anniversary of the 1979 US embassy takeover. Thousands of Iranians shouted “Death to America” as they demonstrated 34 years after Islamist students stormed the embassy compound in Tehran, holding 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days.
Thousands of Iranians chanted "Death to America" on the anniversary on Monday of the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in a jab at moderate President Hassan Rouhani as he tries to ease tension with Washington and resolve the nuclear dispute.
The rally outside the former embassy complex is an annual rite in Iran but took on extra resonance this year as a barometer of hardline conservative opposition to Rouhani's diplomatic opening to the West after eight years of increasing confrontation under predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Large crowds gathered around the embassy building dubbed the "nest of spies" in the local press, holding up anti-US placards and shouting "Death to America," a standard refrain since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Footage broadcast live on state television showed what appeared to be a crowd of several thousand and the walls of the embassy compound plastered with large posters intent on showing supposed deceptions of the United States.
The 1979 siege began when, ten months after the fall of the US-allied shah, radical students stormed the embassy, taking hostage 52 staff for an eventual 444 days. There have been no US-Iranian diplomatic relations since.
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