WITH anti-American slogans and effigies mocking U.S. President Donald Trump, thousands rallied outside the former U.S. embassy in Tehran yesterday to mark the 40th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis.

Rallies also took place in several other cities four decades to the day after revolutionary students stormed the complex and seized dozens of American diplomats and embassy staff — an event that still strains ties.

“They will continue their enmity against us. They are like a lethal scorpion whose nature is to have a poisonous sting,” the head of the army, General Abdolrahim Mousavi, said in a speech in Tehran.

“We are ready to crush this scorpion and will also pay the price.”

He slammed the idea of interacting with the United States as a ruse, echoing recent remarks by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Replica missiles and the same type of air defense battery used to shoot down a U.S. drone in June were put on display outside the former embassy turned museum in Tehran.

Meanwhile, Iran yesterday broke further away from its collapsing 2015 nuclear deal with world powers by announcing it’s doubling the number of advanced centrifuges it operates, calling the decision a direct result of U.S. President Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement.

By starting up these advanced centrifuges, Iran further cuts into the one year that experts estimate Tehran would need to have enough material to build a nuclear weapon — if it chose to pursue one.

Iran long has insisted its program is for peaceful purposes, though Western fears about its work led to the 2015 agreement that saw Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Tehran has gone from producing some 450 grams of low-enriched uranium a day to 5 kilograms, said Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

(SD-Agencies)