Argentinian Jewish leaders have condemned secret negotiations between the governments of Iran and Argentina that took place last week to discuss the bombing of the headquarters of Amia (Argentine Jewish Mutual Association) community centre in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994. The blast left 85 people dead and hundreds injured.
Two years earlier, in 1992, an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people and wounded 200. The Argentinian judiciary issued an international warrant in 2006 for the arrest of seven Iranians and one Lebanese citizen, but Iran has consistently denied any involvement in either attack.
Representatives from Amia and Daia (Delegation of Argentinian Jewish Associations), as well as relatives of the victims of the 1994 bombing, were due to meet this week to draw up the joint declaration denouncing the talks which opened between the Argentinian Foreign Minister, Héctor Timerman, and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi, in New York on September 27.
The signatories were expected to agree that “there can be no valid dialogue between Argentina and Iran until justice has been done in the Amia cause”. The talks, they said, were “suspicious” and concealed other interests such as bilateral trade relations.
