Iran marked the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy on Friday with burning flags and chants of “Death to America”, escalating its anti-U.S. rhetoric ahead of the release of a pivotal U.N. report on its nuclear programme. Thousands of students burned the Stars and Stripes, an effigy of Uncle Sam and pictures of President Barack Obama outside the leafy downtown Tehran compound that once housed the U.S. mission. The embassy was stormed by hardline students on Nov. 4 1979, shortly after Iran’s Islamic revolution toppled the U.S.-backed shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days. The two countries have been enemies ever since.
Tehran has raised the volume of its anti-American rhetoric since October when the United States accused Iran of plotting to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington. Iran calls the accusations false. Tension between Iran and the West is particularly high ahead of the publication next week of a report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, expected to suggest Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed at peaceful generation of electricity, but its failure to allay suspicions that it is seeking a bomb has prompted the United Nations to impose four rounds of economic sanctions on Tehran. For its part, Tehran accuses the US and Israel of killing several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years.