A man enters the headquarters of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Society in Buenos Aires, in 2018. It was the site of the country’s deadliest terrorist attack, a bombing in 1994. File Photo by David Fernández/EPA
March 17 (UPI) — Diplomatic tensions between Argentina and Iran escalated after Iranian state media accused President Javier Milei of crossing an “unforgivable red line” by calling the Islamic Republic an enemy and reaffirming his strategic alignment with the United States and Israel.
The warning appeared Monday in an editorial published by the Tehran Times, an English-language newspaper seen as reflecting the views of Iran’s political and religious leadership. The article said Milei’s government had become an “instrument” of Israel and the United States.
“Milei’s statements in recent months, especially after the illegal military aggression of the United States and the Zionist regime against Iran, once again revealed a bitter and dangerous reality. The Argentine government has become an instrument of the Zionist regime and the United States to advance the project of Iranophobia,” the editorial said, according to Argentine newspaper La Nación.
The piece, titled “Milei, Quo Vadis?” was published amid recent U.S. and Israeli military strikes against Iranian targets.
“Iran cannot remain indifferent to the hostile positions of the current Argentine government. It will have to design a proportionate response to this enmity. Argentina has officially presented itself as an enemy of Iran and has aligned itself with the United States and the Zionist regime in military aggression against our nation. This is an unforgivable red line that has been crossed,” the article said.
The dispute intensified after Milei spoke March 9 at Yeshiva University in New York.
“Iran is our enemy. I do not like Iran. They planted two bombs on us: one at AMIA and another at the Israeli Embassy. Therefore, they are our enemies. In addition, I have a strategic alliance with the United States and Israel,” Milei said.
AMIA is the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina –the central Jewish community organization in Argentina and the site of the country’s deadliest terrorist attack, the 1994 AMIA bombing that killed 85 people.
It functions as a major social, cultural and community institution for Argentine Jews, and its name is now inseparable from the long, unresolved investigation into that attack.
Milei also said he was “proud to be the most Zionist president in the world.”
The remarks came against the backdrop of two major terrorist attacks in Argentina that prosecutors have linked to Iran and Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite political and militant group backed by Tehran and designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries.
On March 17, 1992, a bombing at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people and injured more than 200. Two years later, a truck bomb destroyed the headquarters of AMIA, killing 85 people and injuring more than 300.
Although no final convictions were secured due to the failure to extradite suspects, Argentine courts have blamed senior Iranian officials and Hezbollah for planning the attacks.
Tensions rose again in 2026 when Iran appointed Ahmad Vahidi, one of the suspects accused by Argentine prosecutors of planning the AMIA bombing, as head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Argentina called the move an “unacceptable provocation.”
The Tehran Times editorial denied Iranian involvement in the 1992 and 1994 attacks, describing Argentine judicial findings as “false” and part of a decades-long Iranophobia campaign.
The article accused Argentina of acting under foreign pressure and of becoming “the Israel of Latin America,” alleging that local companies are participating in operations against Iran and financing military aggression.
In Buenos Aires, officials reaffirmed their position during events marking the anniversary of the 1992 embassy bombing.
“Thirty-four years after the attack against the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, we reaffirm our commitment to justice and the fight against terrorism,” Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno wrote on X.
“We remember the 29 victims murdered on March 17, 1992, and honor all those affected. Clarifying this attack remains a nonnegotiable duty of our Nation, and the regime of Iran, responsible for its planning according to Argentine justice, must answer for its vile acts,” the Argentine government said in a statement on its official X account.
Amid tensions in the Middle East, Milei will again take part in a tribute marking the bombing of the Israeli Embassy.
The event will be held at the site at which the diplomatic mission once stood and will carry the slogan “The first time is not forgotten,” aimed at preserving the memory of the first terrorist attack in Argentina.
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