Iranian President Mohammad Khatami warned Thursday that any invader would be met by a "burning hell" as tens of thousands of people braved blizzards to join rallies for the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. "All the people of Iran are united against any attack and any threats," Khatami told a rally in the snow-bound capital. "Any invader will find Iran to be a burning hell for them."
As the clerical regime marked the 26th anniversary of the revolution that ousted the US-backed shah, Iranians were urged to turn out en masse in cities across the country and give a show of unity in the face of mounting international pressure over its nuclear programme.
Tens of thousands gathered around Azadi square in central Tehran despite the fierce cold and snow to hear Khatami step up the rhetoric in the escalating war of words between Iran and the United States.
Washington has hinted at military action against Tehran, accusing the regime of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
"These threats you hear nowadays are just part of the psychological war and the consequence of their failures," Khatami said.
State media urged residents of the capital to "come out of their houses and respond to US threats", saying medical services and warm food and drinks were available to anyone suffering from the cold.
After close to a week of record snowfall, Tehran and much of the north has been virtually paralysed - making it virtually impossible for many people to find transport to take them to the town centre for the annual anti-American demonstrations. But regime loyalists were out in force, parading effigies of US President George W. Bush and his new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
One Bush effigy carried the sign "mentally handicapped", while a life-sized Rice doll carried the text "I've been left up on the shelf" - a reference to her status as an unmarried woman.
Also paraded was a white donkey with the Stars and Stripes painted on its side, as people wandered around chanting "Death to America" and enjoying the occasional snowball fight.
According to powerful former president and top cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the strong turnout "in this snow and cold should send a message to America."
And the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, said the revolution 26 years ago and the ouster of US-backed shah Reza Pahlavi "is a model for all nations that want to get rid of the United States and take back their independence."
The United States, vilified here as the Great Satan, accuses Iran of trying to obtain nuclear weapons under cover of developing civilian atomic energy and has not excluded a military option.
Representatives of the EU and Iran were to meet for a new round of talks in Geneva on Thursday, with diplomats saying the Europeans would "read the riot act" to the Iranians and warn them not to violate an agreed nuclear fuel freeze.
The meeting comes the day after Rice warned that the European Union was not being tough enough with Iran.
"The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message: Don't develop a nuclear weapon," the US President said.
The European Union's "big three" - Britain, France and Germany - are trying to secure guarantees that Tehran will not seek nuclear weapons. In exchange the Europeans are offering a package of incentives.
Iran agreed in November to suspend its fuel cycle work, but the EU trio want Tehran to totally dismantle its uranium enrichment programme to ensure that it cannot make weapons-grade material.
According to an official statement released for the rally, "the Iranian people will not step back even a little bit from their legitimate right to produce and use peaceful nuclear energy, and they reject any sly blackmailing to deprive Iranian people of this right."
But quoted by the official news agency IRNA, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi did pledge Iran had "peaceful objectives and will exhaust all diplomatic capabilities and capacities to negotiate with other countries,"
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