Washington: Iran "must choose" whether to open the door to opportunity and prosperity, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday in a statement marking 30 years since the storming of the US embassy in Tehran.
"We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for," Obama 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."
Radical Islamist students captured the city-center US embassy on November 4, 1979 -- just months after the Islamic revolution toppled the US-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.
Bureau Report
