Iran's hardline president on Friday (November 4) rebuffed a reported vow by U.S. President Joe Biden to 'free Iran', Reuters reports.
President Ebrahim Raisi told cheering supporters that Iran had been freed by the 1979 Islamic revolution."
"I am telling Biden that Iran was freed 43 years ago," President Ebrahim Raisi said in a televised speech.
Biden on Thursday vowed to "free" Iran, and said that demonstrators working against the country's government would soon succeed in freeing themselves.
On Friday, Iran held state-sponsored annual rallies, marking the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, as the clerical establishment that has ruled since then battles nationwide protests calling for its downfall.
Biden on Thursday (November 3) vowed to "free" Iran and said that demonstrators working against the country's government would soon succeed in freeing themselves.
Images broadcast on state television showed anti-American demonstrations attended by tens of thousands of people across the country on the "National Day of Fighting Global Arrogance", while songs called for "Death to America" and described Iran's arch-foe as a manifestation of Satan.
Radical students cemented the Islamic Revolution by storming the embassy soon after the fall of the U.S.-backed Shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days.
The two countries have been enemies ever since and, as Iranian authorities on Friday urged security forces to swiftly stamp out anti-government protests that have spread to all layers of society, new bilateral tensions surfaced.
