Police, protesters clash in Tehran after anti-U.S. rally

They also smashed up posters they had brought with them of the American “Uncle Sam” symbol and chanted “The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader” — a reference to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The crowd was constantly swelled by people arriving on foot and by bus, witnesses said.

Wednesday's anniversary, which has turned into a cornerstone of the Islamic regime, marks the capture by radical Islamist students of the U.S. embassy compound on November 4, 1979 — just months after the Islamic revolution toppled the U.S.-backed shah.

The students, who took 52 American diplomats hostage and held them for 444 days, said they were responding to Washington's refusal to hand over the deposed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The two countries broke diplomatic ties after the event, which have yet to be restored.

Obama in his statement urged Iran to look to the future rather than the past.

“We have heard for 30 years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for,” he said.

“It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity and justice for its people.”

U.S.-Iranian relations deteriorated even further during the tenure of former U.S. president George W. Bush, who lumped Iran into an “axis of evil” along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

During his first term as president, Ahmadinejad stepped up Tehran's anti-U.S. tirade.

And although Washington has made diplomatic overtures towards Tehran under Bush successor Barack Obama, Khamenei said Iran still distrusts the United States.

“Every time they have a smile on their face, they are hiding a dagger behind their back,” he said on Tuesday.

The anniversary comes at a time when Washington is backing a sensitive nuclear fuel deal for Tehran brokered by the UN atomic watchdog.

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