Street battles mark 30th anniversary of student takeover of US embassy in Tehran
Police officers fought with anti-government demonstrators who tried to turn a rally marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian student seizure of the American embassy into a protest against the disputed 30 June election. The embassy was occupied for 444 days when 52 embassy staff were held hostage until they were released on the last day of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Meanwhile, in Washington, Barack Obama called for Iran to put aside decades of hostile relations with the US. In Tehran, the protesters opposed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the disputed election that became Iran’s biggest political crisis since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Ahmadinejad’s opponents have tried to turn the usual ritualised anti-American protest day into shows of support for their cause. The protests are putting the Iranian government in an awkward spot as it tries to find a way forward in its negotiations with the West over the processing of nuclear fuel. Read more: New York Times, VOA, AP
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