TEHRAN, Sept 22: Threats and economic sanctions will not stop Iran’s technological progress, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Saturday at a large parade featuring fighter jets and radar-avoiding missiles designed to show off the country’s military might.

The military parade outside the capital Tehran marked the 27th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion of Iran that sparked the bloody 1980-88 war. It comes days before Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly in New York and as the US and its European allies continue discussions on third round of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

“Those (countries) who assume that decaying methods such as psychological war, political propaganda and the so-called economic sanctions would work and prevent Iran’s fast drive towards progress are mistaken,” Ahmadinejad said at the parade that featured Iran’s latest weapons including unmanned surveillance drones, torpedoes and battle tanks.

The head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said Iran has drawn plans to confront its enemies if attacked, and the parade showed the “might of Iran’s armed forces to its enemies.”

“Iran has drawn up plans to confront enemies in the face of any possible attack,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Jafari as saying.

In the parade, some of the trucks carrying Iranian missiles were painted at the back the popular slogans: “Down with the US” and “Down with Israel”.

The parade also featured flights by three of Iran’s new domestically manufactured fighter jets, known as the Saegheh, which means lightning in Farsi.

Iran says it has weathered a US embargo for 28 years. While many Iranians acknowledge some hardships caused by the embargo, they credit it with making them more self-reliant.

“Those who prevented Iran, at the height of the (1980-88 Iran-Iraq) war from getting even barbed wire must see now that all the equipment on display today has been built by the mighty hands and brains of experts at Iran’s armed forces,” Ahmadinejad said.

Iran launched an arms development programme during its 1980-88 war with Iraq to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own jet fighters, torpedoes, radar-avoiding missiles, tanks and armoured personnel carriers.—AP