While the White House seeks a nuclear deal with Iran, the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran in 1979 are repeating their demands for a formal apology and compensation for their harrowing experience.
“Not only have they not apologized. The taking of that [U.S.] embassy is still celebrated in Iran,” former hostage Rodney Sickmann, who spent 444 days in captivity, told ABC News. “We need to make sure that we show the rest of the world that if you do this to an American embassy, you will be held accountable.”
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Sickmann and other survivors are requesting the Obama administration insist upon a formal apology and compensation for their experience as part of the nuclear agreement with Iran, which is currently being brokered by the U.S. and five other world powers.
“Ultimately, the U.S. should insist on an apology,” Sickmann said in the interview. “For 444 days I had to live as a hostage, tied to a chair first 30 days, then locked in a room for the next 400. My freedom was gone. It was torture.”
The U.S. Embassy in Tehran was taken over by Iranians on Nov. 4, 1979. They were released Jan. 20, 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office to become president. According to Sickmann, the “terrorists” who took over the embassy and controlled the hostages were abusive, humiliating and torturous to them for over a year.
“You regret not ever pulling that trigger when all this is happening to you, you think back to the morning I had a chance. I couldn’t have killed everybody but at least I would have given some satisfaction,” Sickmann told ABC. “But I did my job, I did what I was told to do which was to stand down. So stand down I did and now it is time for the U.S. government to stand up and make sure that Iran is held accountable for what they did.”
In April, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told ABC News: “There are a whole host of issues on the side that are also priorities but that are separate from our ongoing efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
A final nuclear agreement with Iran is expected to past its deadline Tuesday.
