Envoy Asks Britain to Apologize to Iran for Collaboration in 1953 Coup with US

“The UK’s role – along with US – in the coup d’etat overthrowing Iran’s elected government 67 years ago today, is indisputable,” Baeidinejad wrote on his twitter page on Tuesday.

He asked “why” the UK has never offered a formal apology to the people of Iran for its act of violent infringement against the country’s national sovereignty, and regretted that London should have done so long time ago.

The 1953 coup d’état (known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup) was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran, and its head of government Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq on August 19, 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name ‘Operation Boot’) and the United States (under the name Ajax Project) to bring back to power Iran’s fugitive dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

On such a day, a number of the army forces of the oppressive regime, with the cooperation of the United States and Britain, overthrew the government of ‘Mohammad Mosaddeq’ and re-established ‘Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’, who had fled Iran.  

The American-British coup of August 1953, which led to the fall of the legitimate government of Iran at the time (Mossadeq’s government), commemorates a critical period in Iran’s political history before the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

The August 19 coup, part of a series of US-British interventions in Iran during the victory of the nationalization movement in the Iranian oil industry, took place at a time when the International Court of Justice had ruled in Iran’s favor over British-Iranian oil deals.

In recent years, new documents have been published about foreign interference in the coup d’état of August 1953, and some US officials have even acknowledged the direct role of this country and Britain in the coup.