December 25, 2015
Argentina’s former foreign minister has been recorded saying Iran was completely guilty of the 1994 Buenos Aires Jewish community center bombing and that was why he was negotiating with the Islamic Republic.
Critics in Argentina, including many Jews, have complained for years that Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed a deal with Iran in order to let them off the hook.
But Timerman argued that the deal with Iran was the only way to keep it on the hook.
The leaked recordings of Hector Timerman, who is Jewish, speaking in 2012 with Argentine Jewish leaders were released Friday by the Argentine radio station Mitre.
Timerman defends the efforts made by the government of then-President Kirchner, saying the only goal was to solve the bombing. Timerman justifies the deal with Iran to “jointly” investigate the attack, which killed 85 and injured hundreds, saying there is no one else to talk to because Iran is the guilty party: “Eighteen years ago they planted the bomb,” he said flatly.
In the first recording, Timerman is speaking with Guillermo Borger, then the president of the Jewish community organization.
Timerman says, “I’m calling you because it hurts. It hurts me as a Jew to hear the critics from community center. And it seems that the best choice is to do nothing, and if we [the government] do nothing, you will be happy. But I’m doing this for you.”
The foreign minister also said the state prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, told him in a private call that he was in favor of the deal with Iran. But after Iran and Argentina signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly investigate the bombing, Nisman challenged the agreement, asking a federal judge to declare it unconstitutional.
In the second tape, Jewish community center vice president Jose Scaliter also joins the conversation:
Borger: “We don’t regard Iran as valid [as a negotiating partner].”
Timerman: “And who do you want me to negotiate with, Switzerland?”
Borger: “I will just say that Iran lies, is not credible and denies the Holocaust.”
Timerman: “But we don’t have anyone else to negotiate with…. Well, tell me who you want me to negotiate with?”
Later, Borger says: “I hope you can negotiate with another …”
Timerman: “If there was someone else, they [the Iranians] wouldn’t have planted the bomb. So we are back to the beginning. Do you have someone else for me to negotiate with?”
Scaliter: “We don’t tell you with whom you must negotiate.”
Timerman: “No, you tell me with whom I cannot negotiate.”
Scaliter: “Right.”
Timerman: “Ah, are you smart.”
Later, Borger says that Nisman “carried out a serious and important investigation and says Iran did it.”
Timerman: “So?”
Borger: “… so I will trust him if they will present it to the justice.”
Timerman: “So how do you want me to bring them [the Iranian fugitives] to Argentina? You never know what should be done.”
Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment on January 18. The cause of his shooting death has yet to be determined.
In 2015, Timerman resigned his membership in the Jewish community center, expressing his “indeclinable resignation” due to the “obstructionist actions” that the institution had made against the deal with Iran to investigate the attack.
The deal was later declared unconstitutional by an Argentine court. President Fernandez appealed. Last week, the new government of President Mauricio Macri withdrew the appeal and the deal with Iran is now dead.
The deal called for the appointment of a joint commission comprised entirely of people who are neither Iranians nor Argentines to investigate the bombing.
Though Argentina has accused the Iranian government of directing the bombing, and the Lebanese Hezbollah of carrying it out, no arrests have been made. Six Iranians have been on the Interpol international police agency’s most wanted list since 2007 as wanted for questioning about the bombing.