TEHRAN (Kayhan Intl.) -- Thousands of Iranians chanted "Death to America” near the old U.S. embassy on Monday, the 40th anniversary on the takeover of the spying mission, with the country’s army chief comparing the United States with a poisonous scorpion intent on harming Iran.
Crowds packed the streets around the former mission, dubbed the "den of spies” after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Students stormed the embassy soon after the fall of the U.S.-backed shah, and 52 Americans were held there for 444 days.
The U.S. and Israeli flags and effigies of President Donald Trump were set ablaze during marches and rallies that were held in some 1,000 communities across the country, Iranian media said.
"Our fight with America is over our independence, over not submitting to bullying, over values, beliefs and our religion,” army chief Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi said in a speech at the rally outside the former embassy.
"They (Americans) will continue their hostilities, like the proverbial poisonous scorpion whose nature it is to sting and cannot be stopped unless it is crushed,” Mousavi said.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Sunday renewed a ban on talks with the United States. "Those who believe that negotiations with the enemy will solve our problems are 100% wrong,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament gave initial approval to a measure requiring schoolbooks to inform students about "America’s crimes”. Lawmakers also chanted "Death to America”.
Relations between the two countries have reached a crisis over the past year since U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 pact between Iran and world powers under which it accepted curbs to its nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions.
The United States has reimposed sanctions aimed at halting all Iranian oil exports, saying it seeks to force it to negotiate to reach a wider deal.
General Mousavi slammed the idea of interacting with the United States as a ruse. Protesters held yellow placards saying "The illusion of U.S. return to Iran cannot be realized," referring to Ayatollah Khamenei's Sunday speech which warned against Washington gaining a foothold.
Words like negotiation are a "gift wrapping ... hiding the discourse of submission and defeat," Mousavi said, adding that the only way forward is "to maintain the revolutionary spirit through prudence and obeying the leader."
Replica missiles and the same type of air defense battery used to shoot down a U.S. drone in June were put on display outside the former embassy turned museum in Tehran.
Iran unveiled new anti-American murals on the walls of the former embassy on Saturday with stark images of a crumbling Statue of Liberty, a downed U.S. drone and skulls floating in a sea of blood.
At the end of their rallies outside the U.S. embassy in Tehran, protesters issued a statement, branding Washington "deceitful" and "mankind's biggest enemy."
The statement called the takeover of the embassy a "genius" and "revolutionary" move that needed to be discussed in universities and schools to familiarize the youths with America's atrocities against Iran.
"We still view the declining and collapsing America as the number one enemy of the mankind," the statement noted, adding both the U.S. and its European allies are "untrustworthy."
They also condemned the "child murdering" regime of Israel as well as the Al Saud regime for their attempts to sow division in the Islamic world.
The demonstrators further reiterated their support for the people of Palestine in the face of Israel's ongoing occupation of their lands.
Finally, they supported the Houthi movement's fight against Saudi Arabia's deadly war and expressed solidarity with the people of Bahrain and Nigeria, in the struggle against their governments.
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