Iranian students held protests in front of the UN office in the Iranian capital of Tehran against alleged threats of a U.S. nuclear strike, Iranian news agency FARS said on Wednesday.
U.S. President Barak Obama said in a speech on Washington’s new nuclear strategy that Iran and North Korea will be excluded from a commitment not to use nuclear weapons against countries which comply with nuclear nonproliferation. Iran took the statement to be a threat of nuclear attack and promised to file a formal complaint to the United Nations.
According to FARS, Iranian students were chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans. Protesters carried pictures of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and banners saying "Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear weapons for nobody" and "Death to the USA, Death to Israel!"
Anti-American demonstrations were held in late April in front of the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents the interests of the United States in Iran. The demonstrators handed over a letter of protest written on a grain of rice and an olive leaf as a symbol of peace and friendship to the Swiss diplomatic office.
Threats of nuclear strikes against the Islamic Republic are unacceptable to the Iranian nation, the letter said.
At a nuclear Non-proliferation conference in New York on May 3, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said “Iran will do whatever it can to divert attention away from its own record and to attempt to evade accountability. Ultimately, however, we will all be judged not for our words but for our actions.”
The United States and Iran broke off diplomatic ties in 1979, when supporters of Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days.
In 1980 the United States imposed sanctions against Tehran, which are still in force, and has since initiated the introduction of international UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.
The United States and other Western countries accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons under the guise of nuclear energy program. As a result, the UN Security Council has adopted a series of sanctions against Iran, demanding it to give up its uranium enrichment program.
Tehran denies the charges, claiming that its nuclear program is aimed at providing the country's electricity needs.
On the initiative of the United States, representatives of the Iran Six (the five permanent Security Council members - Russia, USA, UK, China and France - plus Germany) are discussing the issue of tighter sanctions towards Iran.
MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti)
