Shimon Peres welcomed in Argentina for state visit

Israeli President Shimon Peres and Argentinean President Christina Fernández have met in Buenos Aires. “Argentina does not allow anybody to choose its friends, and it doesn’t choose the friends of others,” Fernández told reporters after meeting, referring to the influence of Iran in Latin America and Tehran’s close relations with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Kirchner reportedly postponed a planned visit by Chavez to Buenos Aires in the wake of the Peres visit. Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with Israel earlier this year, and Chávez has repeatedly attacked the Israeli government.

Peres' schedule in Argentina includes a rally at the Luna Park Stadium, meetings with Argentinean politicians, a visit to a Jewish school and tributes to the victims of the terrorist attack against the AMIA center and the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in the 1990s.

His arrival was met with a protest against Israel opposite Congress that drew hundreds of demonstrators, who marched toward the Israeli Embassy and waved banners bearing slogans calling Peres a murderer, as well as posters of the leader of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran is suspected of having masterminded the attack on the AMIA Jewish center in 1994, in which 85 people died and hundreds were wounded.

This is Peres' second trip to Argentina. He visited in 1994 when he served as foreign minister in the government of Yitzhak Rabin. The last Israeli president to visit Argentina was Chaim Herzog in 1989.