Israel has killed most of those behind the deadly attacks on
its embassy and a Jewish charities building in Argentina in the 1990s, a former
Israeli envoy said Thursday, AFP reported.
Itzhak Aviran, who was Israel's ambassador to Argentina from
1993 to 2000, thus broke away from the ambiguity policy Israel usually
practices.
The July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Charities
Federation (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires killed 85 people. Hundreds were hurt
in a bombing Argentina says was masterminded by Iran. Tehran's clerical regime
has denied the charges.
Two years earlier, in March 1992, a car bombing in front of
the Israeli embassy in the capital killed 29 and wounded 200 others.
"The large majority of those responsible are no longer
of this world, and we did it ourselves," Aviran was quoted by AFP as
having told the Buenos Aires-based AJN Jewish news agency.
Two decades after the blasts, those who instigated them have
not been brought to justice.
Neither Carlos Menem, who was Argentina's president from
1989 to 1999, nor his successor Fernando de la Rua and those who followed
"did anything to get to the bottom of this tragedy," Aviran told the
Argentine news agency.
"We still need an answer (from the Argentine
government) on what happened," he added. "We know who the
perpetrators of the embassy bombing were and they did it a second time."
Argentine courts have charged eight Iranians over the AMIA
bombing and authorities are demanding their extradition. They include former
defense minister Ahmad Vahidi and ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Argentine authorities also suspect Iran of being behind the
1992 bombing.
Last year, Iran and Argentina reached an agreement about
creating an independent “truth commission” to investigate the AMIA bombing.
Iran has confirmed that it would cooperate with the probe,
but has declared in the past that no Iranians facing international arrest
warrants over the bombing would be questioned by Argentine judges.
The Argentine opposition and representatives of the
country's 300,000-strong Jewish community strenuously opposed the agreement.
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