Zarif Urges Washington, London to Change Approach toward Iranians

 Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the US and the UK for seeking to suffocate Iranian people’s demand for dignity through coups and plots since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

“67 years ago today, US/UK tried to suffocate the Iranian people’s demand for dignity in a coup overthrowing their elected government. Since 1979, the US has desperately tried to resuscitate the past. Yet it keeps getting humiliated by the Iranian people. Time to change tack?” Zarif tweeted on Tuesday.

Zarif was referring to the 1953 coup d’état against the elected government of Iran’s then-Prime Minster Mohammad Mosaddeq. The anniversary of the Western-sponsored coup annually falls on August 18.

In August 1953, the British intelligence agency MI6 and its American counterpart, the CIA, initiated the coup by the Iranian military, setting off a series of events, including riots on the streets of the capital Tehran, which led to the overthrow and arrest of Mosaddeq.

The coup, which was followed by the temporary rule of CIA- and MI6-approved General Fazlollah Zahedi, enabled the monarch, Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi’s return from exile in Italy. It also consolidated the monarch’s rule for the following 26 years until the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, led by Imam Khomeini, which toppled the Pahlavi regime.

Mosaddeq, who was convicted of treason by a court martial after the coup, served three years in solitary confinement and eventually died under house arrest in exile in 1967.

The historic overthrow, though, is still given as a reason for the Iranians’ mistrust of the UK and the US.

Experts say the upheaval, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad Coup, was aimed at making sure the Iranian monarchy would safeguard the West’s oil interests in the country.

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