Iranian Protesters raided British embassy! Is time returned to 1981?

[uncleyap]

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/268460/iran-protesters-storm-british-embassy

Iranians storm British embassy

Published: 29/11/2011 at 08:32 PM
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Iranian protesters stormed the British embassy and another British diplomatic compound in Tehran on Tuesday, dramatically raising tensions with the West in a confrontation over the Islamic republic's controversial nuclear programme.

Iranian riot police stand guard outside the British embassy in Tehran during a protest in 2009. Around 20 Iranian protesters have stormed the British embassy in Tehran, removing the mission's flag and ransacking offices, an AFP journalist outside the compound says.
More than 20 protesters clambered over the walls of the embassy in the centre of the capital, ransacking offices, smashing windows and tearing down the British flag before Iranian police entered and stopped them, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.

In the second British diplomatic compound, in Tehran's north, between 100 and 300 protesters burst in and occupied the property, which houses schools and residences, according to Iranian media.

The situation there was not immediately clear. The state news agency IRNA said the protesters had foreigners there in their control -- that they were described as "protecting."

An official in the British embassy told AFP all British diplomatic staff were safe and accounted for.

The British Foreign Office expressed outrage at the incursion into its embassy, saying it was "utterly unacceptable and we condemn it".

It urged all Britons in Iran "to stay inside and keep a low profile."

Iranian police, after initially doing little to stop the protesters, were dispersing a crowd in front of the embassy late Tuesday.

Earlier, the crowd had chanted "Death to Britain" and demanded the British ambassador leave the country immediately in reaction to fresh sanctions London unveiled last week against Iran's entire financial sector.

Protesters inside the embassy grounds were shown live on Iranian state television throwing stones at windows, breaking them, and one was seen climbing the wall with a looted portrait of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. Others threw embassy papers into the air.

At the northern compound, IRNA reported that protesters had carried off "classified and espionage documents" and also replaced the British flag there with the Iranian flag.

The scenes -- which recalled the 1979 storming of the US embassy that led to the rupture of US-Iranian diplomatic ties -- seriously added to an intensifying showdown between Iran and Western nations.

Iran on Monday passed a law to kick out Britain's ambassador within the next two weeks and reduce diplomatic relations to the level of charge d'affaires because of the new sanctions.

Britain has said it will act "robustly" if Iran's foreign ministry complies.

Its sanctions were announced in conjunction with the United States and Canada.

EU foreign ministers on Thursday are expected to reveal new sanctions against Iran.

The European Union and the United States said Monday they were considering extra measures to pressure Iran on its nuclear activities.

The United States and its allies suspect Iran is seeking to build an atomic arsenal -- a fear crystallised in a report by the UN nuclear watchdog this month that strongly suggested Tehran had researched nuclear warheads.

Israel, which views Iran as its biggest threat in the Middle East, is considering air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to recent Israeli media reports.

Iran has repeatedly denied its nuclear programme is anything but for peaceful, civilian purposes. It has warned it would respond to any attack by raining missiles on Israel and Turkey.

Iran is already subject to four sets of UN sanctions designed to pressure it to halt its uranium enrichment activities, as well as the unilateral Western sanctions.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

 

[uncleyap]

The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian Revolution.[1]

The episode reached a climax when, after failed attempts to negotiate a release, the United States military attempted a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24, 1980, which resulted in a failed mission, the destruction of two aircraft and the deaths of eight American servicemen and one Iranian civilian. It ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19, 1981. The hostages were formally released into United States custody the following day, just minutes after the new American president Ronald Reagan was sworn in.

The crisis has been described as an entanglement of "vengeance and mutual incomprehension".[2] In Iran, the hostage taking was widely seen as a blow against the U.S, and its influence in Iran, its perceived attempts to undermine the Iranian Revolution, and its long-standing support of the Shah of Iran, recently overthrown by the revolution. The Shah had been restored to power in a 1953 coup organized by the CIA at the American Embassy against a democratically-elected nationalist Iranian government,[3] and had recently been allowed into the United States for medical treatment. In the United States, the hostage-taking was seen as an outrage violating a centuries-old principle of international law granting diplomats immunity from arrest and diplomatic compounds are considered inviolable.[4]

The crisis has also been described as the "pivotal episode" in the history of Iran – United States relations.[5] In the U.S., some political analysts believe the crisis was a major reason for U.S. President Jimmy Carter's defeat in the November 1980 presidential election.[6] In Iran, the crisis strengthened the prestige of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the political power of those who supported theocracy and opposed any normalization of relations with the West.[7] The crisis also marked the beginning of U.S. legal action, or economic sanctions against Iran, that further weakened economic ties between Iran and the United States.[8]