Iran commemorates 20th anniversary of war with Iraq

Iranian women militia volunteers march during a parade celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) -- Iran marked the 20th anniversary of the start of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war on Thursday with a military parade and a call for peace by President Mohammad Khatami.

Khatami took the salute from thousands of ground, navy and air force troops and Revolutionary Guards who snapped into a goose-step as they marched past the reviewing stand in Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square.

"Iran calls for peace in the region, and in the whole world. Our policy is a policy of promoting global detente," Khatami told the troops.

"We want a peace based on justice, a peace in which the rights of all nations are respected. A peace which is not based on the domination of the strong, the bullies, over the weak," he said.

"But in today's world, where relations are based on threats, on power and on bullying, our nation has every right to arm itself for its own defense."

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Flowers covered the reviewing stand and portraits commemorated Iranian commanders killed in the devastating war.

War veterans in wheelchairs, nomadic tribesmen in their colorful attire and turbaned clerics also joined the parade wearing khaki instead of their trademark robes.

Women toting assault rifles with flowers in the barrels marched past wearing black chadors, the enveloping dress worn by traditional Moslem women in the Islamic republic.

Iran's relations with Iraq have remained strained in the 12 years since a ceasefire was announced and the two countries have not yet signed a formal peace treaty.

The neighbors have not yet released all prisoners of war and accuse each other of harboring armed opposition groups who regularly carry out cross-border raids.

Iraq commemorated the anniversary on September 4, the date it says Iran initiated hostilities. Iraq's official press has called for a new page to be turned in relations.

Iran blames the United States for encouraging Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to attack Iran less than two years after the Islamic revolution in February 1979 that deposed the U.S.-backed Shah.

Iran's oil-rich Arab neighbors are also blamed for keeping the cogs of Iraq's war machine well oiled by injecting billions of petrodollars into the Iraqi economy during the war years.

But relations with the Gulf Arabs have vastly improved since the moderate Khatami took office in 1997.

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