Argentina responds to Iran following threats: 'we won't be deterred'

The Argentine government responded to Iran following a threat by a government mouthpiece over its stance regarding two decades-long attacks against the country's Jewish community and the current Israel-Hamas war.

Several high-ranking officials, among them the vice president, the cabinet chief and the ministers of security and defense, rejected the piece by the Tehran Times, which included passages such as "Tehran will not forget Buenos Aires' anti-Iranian policy" and "at the right time and position, it will impose its own game to the enemy and will make it feel sorry for its enmity towards Iran."

Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos said in a radio interview that while "it is a bit surprising that such threats can be uttered with impunity," the country "can't subject itself to those seeking to spread fear and terror." Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, on her end, said "Argentina doesn't get threatened because Argentina was the one that got struck."

The piece by the Tehran Times criticized the Milei administration's decision to declare Hamas a terrorist organization and that it "reiterated its baseless assertion about Iran's involvement in the attacks to the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and to the AMIA Argentine-Israeli Association."

The attacks took place in 1992 and 1994 and, until the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, the latter was the largest against a Jewish community since the Holocaust. 22 people were killed and 242 injured in the attack against the Israeli embassy, while 85 died and over 300 were injured in the AMIA bombing.

While the case has not yielded convictions and had many different officials take the lead over the decades, the country's highest criminal court determined in April that both the AMIA attack and another one against the Israeli embassy in Argentina two years prior were ordered by Iran and carried out by Hezbollah.

The developments, the article said in another passage, put the countries "at the threshold of a new incident after three decades of ambiguity and deviation in a criminal case." "Without a doubt, Tehran will not forget Buenos Aires' anti-Iranian policy," the article added.

President Milei did not directly address the article, but did appear undeterred at a speech with Jewish leaders following the official event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the AMIA bombing on Thursday.

He said that "sectors tied to the Iranian government, Hezbollah and Hamas" were responsible for the attacks. "Those terrorists from the tragic events on October 7 are exactly the same who attacked us three decades ago. There is no difference," he said. "There can't be doubts that Iranian terrorism is an issue of national interest directly affecting the lives of all Argentines."