As sanctions kick in, Iranians mark US embassy takeover
TEHRAN: Thousands of Iranians rallied on Sunday in commemoration of the 39th anniversary of the takeover and hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran, just hours before the reimposition of all American sanctions lifted by the 2015 nuclear deal.
The 444-day crisis after the fall of the US-allied Shah transfixed America, as images of blindfolded hostages played on TV sets across the nation.
Ultimately, it would be President Jimmy Carter leaving office that saw all 52 captive American diplomats freed.
On Sunday, hardliners in Iran vented their rage at a new American president, Donald Trump, who pulled the US out of the nuclear deal struck by his predecessor.
The annual commemoration marks when student demonstrators climbed over the fence at the embassy on November 4, 1979, angered about Carter allowing the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to receive cancer treatment in the US.
WATCH WHAT WE DO, WARNS POMPEO
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has said the Trump administration is fully committed to reducing Iranian crude imports by its major buyers China and India to “zero” and warned ominously, but without specifics, “watch what we do”.
Interestingly, Pompeo went on to defend the Trump administration’s reimposition of economic sanctions against Iran from conservative critics who argue more should be done to isolate the country.
In an interview to Fox News on Sunday, Pompeo insisted that despite the waivers, “the sanctions have already had an enormous impact.”