Iran to apply UN over plot amid anti-US rally

TEHRAN- Agence France-Presse

Iranian women hold anti-US signs and pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei outside the former US embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4 during a rally. AFP photo

Thousands of Iranians chanting “Death to America” marked the anniversary on Friday of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy with symbolic actions and speeches condemning U.S. allegations of an Iranian assassination plot.
The annual celebration in front of what Iranians call “the den of spies” was also used this year as a platform to hail the Arab Spring -- termed the “Islamic awakening” here -- and to denounce Israel. Some of the mainly young crowd taking part burnt U.S. and Israeli flags and a picture of U.S. President Barack Obama. Effigies of Israeli and US political figures were held aloft.
 Saeed Jalili, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, told the demonstrators the government had “irrefutable” evidence of the United States “backing, training terrorists” against Iran. He waved some papers and said they were documents backing his claims.
He did not give further details but said Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations would submit the papers to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon in order “to take needed action against these impudent acts.” Tensions between Iran and the United States intensified last month when US officials accused Tehran of masterminding a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
Nov. 4’s demonstration commemorated Nov. 4, 1979, when Islamic students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 U.S. diplomats hostage in a crisis that lasted 444 days. The hostage-taking resulted in the breaking of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States and has left the two countries implacable foes for the past 32 years. Demonstrators on Friday also carried banners supporting the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and denouncing capitalism.