MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Iran enforces memorandum with Argentina to look into AMIA terrorist bombing

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad endorsed the memorandum without Congress approval

The business representative of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires Alí Pakdaman announced on Monday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad endorsed without Congress approval the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Argentina and Tehran in order to investigate the AMIA Jewish centre bombing which killed 85 people in 1994.

“The accord was approved yesterday in Iran according to the article 6 of the Memorandum, which says the accord will be sent to relevant government agencies of each country for its ratification, such as the Congress, Parliament or other agencies,” Pakdaman told reporters.

“According to point 6 there was no need for it to pass parliament. Argentina did so because it did not want the whole weight of the understanding on the Executive. We declared it enforced with all its effects”, added Pakdaman.

Furthermore, the information was confirmed later by Kircherite pro-Iran official Luis D’Elía via his Twitter account.

The controversial memorandum was passed by the Argentine Congress in February but was thwarted by Tehran as its government had other priorities to address.

With this decision, Argentine judiciary authorities will have to travel to Tehran to question the AMIA bombing suspects.

In Argentina the controversial memorandum was finally approved in Congress after long debates and strong exchanges on 27 February with the ruling coalition of President Cristina Fernandez imposing its majority both in the Senate and in the Lower House with 131 positive to 113 negative votes.

The memorandum with Iran established a Truth Committee to review the case of the attack on the Jewish centre which is entitled to question the bombing suspects.

Most of the Jewish community in Argentina strongly rejected the understanding with Iran and as such was expressed in Congress by the representatives from the AMIA and DAIA groupings. Something similar occurred with international Jewish organizations, Israel and the US State Department.

The possibility of a memorandum was first announced by President Cristina Fernandez at the UN General Assembly, and was signed by Foreign minister Hector Timerman and his Iranian counterpart in Ethiopia last January.