Seven decades on, Iranians resent 1953 US-orchestrated coup

Iranians marked Sunday the anniversary of the US-, UK-aided coup that toppled the first democratically-elected government of then Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953.

Declassified documents have revealed that the US spy agency CIA, along with Britain’s MI6, planned the coup by hiring domestic and foreign agents against the legitimate government of Iran in order to secure their interests and maintain their influence and power in Iran.

The US and UK were disgruntled with Mosaddegh who nationalized Iran’s oil industry and wrested it back from Western control.

The plot led to riots on the streets in the Iranian capital Tehran and arrest and toppling of Mosaddegh, who was convicted of treason by a court martial, served three years in solitary confinement and eventually died under house arrest in exile in 1967.

Following the coup, the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, returned from exile and remained in power until the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani also posed a message on X social media platform on Sunday, lamenting the overthrow of the Mosaddegh government through the political, security, and military support by the US and UK.

He said the disgrace will remain forever in the record of the US and British regimes.

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