TEHRAN — Iranian demonstrators gathered on Sunday outside the former US embassy in Tehran to mark the anniversary of the 1979 hostage crisis that has for decades shaped relations between Washington and Tehran.
The hostage crisis began in November 1979 following the Islamic revolution led by Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini which ousted the Western-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
Students loyal to Khomeini stormed the embassy building and held 52 staff hostage for 444 days while demanding that Washington hand over Iran’s recently toppled shah, who was being treated in the United States for cancer.
Washington officially broke off relations with Tehran in 1980, midway through the crisis, and they have been frozen ever since.
“Death to Israel, Death to America!” chanted crowds of Iranians outside the building, which is currently a museum known as the “Den of Spies”, and covered with striking anti-American murals.
Others burnt the Israeli and US flags.
Iranians have held the rallies annually since 1979.
Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami criticised Israel and the United States, saying they “cannot survive by slaughtering and killing Muslims.”
