Two Iranian war invalids unveiled a plaque outside the German Embassy in Tehran on Friday that accuses Germany of supplying chemical weapons to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.

The plaque's erection was clearly in retaliation for the unveiling of a plaque in Berlin last month that marked the assassination of four Iranian Kurdish dissidents in 1992. The Berlin plaque, erected by the local authority at the site of the former Mykonos restaurant, blamed the then Iranian government for the killings.

One of the two veterans who unveiled the plaque, Ahmad Paryab, who spoke with plastic pipes running into his nose to assist breathing, called for the prosecution of Germany's top officials during the Iran-Iraq war.

"We demand that the then leaders of Germany be tried in an international court for war crimes and that the German government pay compensation to us," Paryab told about 100 people who attended the ceremony. Paryab was wounded by chemical weapons in the war, as were other members of the crowd.

The metal plaque stands on a four-meter(yard)-high plinth, clad in gray marble, in the sidewalk opposite the embassy's consular entrance on Ferdowsi Street in central Tehran.

It bears texts in Farsi and English, but the English is a poor translation of the original. It reads: "Name of the German government for the Iranian nation is the reminder of the great catastrophe of chemical massacre during the Iraqi Baathist regime's imposed war against Iran."[...]

The Tehran local authorities erected the plaque and a tent next to it, which houses a temporary exhibition of photographs of victims of chemical attacks during the war. The pictures show wounded Iranian children as well as soldiers.

The head of the Tehran City Council, Mahdi Chamran, said the plaque was put up to "defend the rights of chemical victims."

"The world has not forgotten the crimes committed by Hitler during World War II. And it should not forget this crime as well," he told reporters...