AFP, TEHRAN: Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted Thursday his country wanted peace but warned any nation considering attacking the Islamic republic faced a “destructive and fiery” response.
He was speaking at an military parade marking the start of “Sacred Defence Week” — the anniversary of the outbreak of a destructive eight-year war with Iraq in 1980 — and amid mounting Western pressure on Iran's nuclear programme.
On show were thousands of troops and a range of hardware including six of Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missiles — which sported banners saying “Death to America”, “We will crush America under our feet” and “Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth”.
“Our enemies have understood that we are very serious in defending our security,” said Ahmadinejad, himself a veteran of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. The term “enemies” is used as a reference to the United States and Israel.
“Our nation wants peace, stability, justice and equality in international relations. We have always sought friendly relations with other countries. Our nation wants the well-being of other countries and will not do anything against their national interest,” he said.
“We want the Persian Gulf to be a gulf of friendship and equality,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech to officials and dignitaries at the parade, being staged in the south of the capital near the shrine of Iran's late Islamic revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and also carried live on state television.
But he warned that “if some want to again test what they have tested before, the flame of the Iranian nation will be very destructive and fiery.”
“Relying on our nation and armed forces, we will make the aggressor regret its actions,” Ahmadinejad warned, telling Iran's army to “prepare their defensive readiness” and calling for an “expansion of the defence industries and the utilisation of the latest technology”.
A commentary accompanying the parade described the Shahab-3, as they rolled past Ahmadinejad on launchers, as “the symbol of our strength and of the authority of Iran”.
