Friday 19 / April / 2024
Ankara: Hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied on Sunday to mark the anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, denouncing the United States and Israel as oppressors.
President Hassan Rouhani, addressing flag-waving crowds on central Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square, made no specific reference to Israel's air strikes in Syria on Saturday which it said were aimed at air defence and Iranian targets.
But he told the crowd: "They (U.S. and Israel) wanted to create tension in the region ... they wanted to divide Iraq, Syria ... They wanted to create long-term chaos in Lebanon but ... but with our help their policies failed."
In a show of defiance of Western pressure to curb its ballistic missile programme, Iran put its Ghadr ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,240 miles) on display in Tehran's central Vali-ye Asr street.
Iran says its missile programme is solely defensive in nature and is not negotiable as demanded by the United States and the Europeans.
Iranian State television said "tens of millions of people” rallied to support the revolution across the country of 81 million.
