High-ranking leaders in the Jewish community rejected a request by the Iranian government to meet with Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman next week during the United Nations General Assembly in New York, sources said.
“The Government must strongly urge Iran to cooperate with the Law and allow those Iranian suspects who have an international arrest warrant to testify before an Argentine court,” DAIA head Aldo Donzis said when referring to the request made by Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi.
AMIA head Guillermo Borger added that “until that happens, any kind of approach is absolutely unlikely.”
Borger assured, however, that they “do not tell Government officials what to do, but this is what we hope for.”
“A year ago, the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent a not asking Argentina to being a constructive dialogue,” Donzis recalled.
“Back then we said that you cannot start a dialogue as long as there’s a pending judicial situation, and that it was just a strategy to stall, and that’s exactly what happened. Argentina has some nice gestures towards them because they Government felt it had to do so – even though we didn’t agree – but the country did not have any intention of cooperating with the Argentine law because they say it’s “an embarrassment,” the DAIA head said.
“We feel a new request to meet and talk is just a new strategy to delay and not cooperate with the Argentine law,” he stated.
On Tuesday, the Argentine Foreign Ministry said that the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi had requested a hearing with its Argentine counterpart while they both attended the UN General Assembly next week.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald