\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t The Milei administration declared Iran\u2019s highest-ranking diplomatic representative in Argentina, Mohsen Soltani Tehrani, persona non grata, ordering him to leave the country within 48 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to a communiqu\u00e9 released by the presidential press team, the decision was made in response to what it called \u201cfalse and offensive\u201d statements made by Iran.\u00a0The release went on to say these comments were an \u201cunacceptable interference\u201d in Argentina\u2019s internal affairs.<\/p>\n
The statements the Argentine government was referencing were made by Tehran in a release protesting Argentina\u2019s recent decision to label the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite military group tasked with protecting the country\u2019s authorities, a \u201cterrorist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Via a press release published by the Iranian embassy in Uruguay, Tehran had said that the decision could not only cause \u201cserious harm\u201d to bilateral relations between Argentina and Iran but also set a \u201cdangerous precedent in international relations and create international responsibility for the Argentine government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran also warned that President Javier Milei and Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno had become \u201caccomplices to crimes and placed themselves on the wrong side of history\u201d by aligning themselves with the United States and Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In its statement announcing Tehrani\u2019s expulsion, the Argentine government also cited Iran\u2019s \u201crefusal to cooperate with the Argentine judiciary in the investigation of the AMIA bombing, as well as its repeated failure to comply with international arrest warrants and extradition requests for those responsible\u201d as another reason for the decision.<\/p>\n
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar publicly showed his support for the Argentine government\u2019s decision. He also expressed his gratitude to Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno and praised the stance of President Milei, whom he described as \u201can example in the defense of the values \u200b\u200bof freedom and in the fight against terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soltani Tehrani had been serving as interim charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires of the Islamic Republic of Iran since December 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Labeling the IRGC a \u201cterrorist group\u201d The Milei administration argued that its decision on March 31 to declare the IRGC a terrorist group was based on \u201cjudicial investigations and intelligence work\u201d that determined that two terrorist attacks in Argentina (the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the Jewish community center AMIA in 1994) had been \u201cplanned, financed, and carried out with direct participation of the Iranian regime and operatives of the Revolutionary Guard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The official communiqu\u00e9 also mentioned Ahmad Vahidi, an Iranian official accused of being involved in the 1994 AMIA bombing who was recently appointed commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard.<\/p>\n
Cover photo: Mohsen Soltani Tehrani (courtesy Ambito)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Milei administration declared Iran\u2019s highest-ranking diplomatic representative in Argentina, Mohsen Soltani Tehrani, persona non grata, ordering him to leave the country within 48 hours.\u00a0 According to a communiqu\u00e9 released by the presidential press team, the decision was made in response to what it called \u201cfalse and offensive\u201d statements made by Iran.\u00a0The release went on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":48795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,3683,61,970,7830],"tags":[596,8092,89,1363,7828],"class_list":["post-48794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-relations","category-iran","category-javier-milei","category-pablo-quirno","category-terrorism","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-javier-milei","tag-pablo-quirno","tag-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}