Argentina and Iran have announced they would keep talking until they resolve issues stemming from two 1990s attacks on the Israeli Embassy and the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires that Argentina’s judiciary says were sponsored by Tehran. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez surprised the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week by announcing the talks. The foreign ministers of the two countries met at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Thursday. They issued a statement saying that lawyers for the two sides would meet again next month in Geneva.
"The goal is to explore a legal mechanism that does not go against the systems of either Argentina or Iran," the statement said. "This process will continue until a mutually agreed solution is found to all issues concerning the case."
Argentine prosecutors have accused Iran of sponsoring a July 1994 attack on the main Jewish center in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were killed. That terror attack came two years after a group linked to Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29.
Argentina is home to Latin America's largest Jewish population. Guillermo Borger, head of Argentina's AMIA association, whose headquarters was destroyed in the car bomb blast, told a local radio that talking with Iran was an "improbable and absolutely unreliable" approach to seeking justice.
Latin American Jewish Congress President Jack Terpins said: “I don’t understand how one can have relations with a country that is an enemy, a state which Argentina’s own judiciary considers the mastermind of the bombings.” Terpins recalled that Iran’s Defense Minister Vahidi is still on an Interpol list of people wanted by Argentina in connection with the bombings.
Ronald Lauder meets Argentine Foreign Minister Timerman in New York
On Thursday, Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, met with Foreign Minister Hector Timerman of Argentina to discuss issues of concern to the Jewish community, among them the meeting between Timerman and Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. The World Jewish Congress head reiterated that the six Iranians who are on Interpol’s Red Warrant list for the AMIA bombing must be brought to justice. Lauder said:” The World Jewish Congress stands with the families of the victims. Justice cannot be delayed and answers to the families and the Jewish community are long overdue.”
