The government of Argentine President Javier Milei ratified this Monday its full support for Israel after the Iran attack and ruled out that this position would make the South American country a target for terrorist attacks such as those it suffered in 1994 and 1992, which have been attributed to that Islamic country.
Meanwhile, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked that “there be no longer a response from Israel to Iran, that things remain as they are because, if not, it would escalate the conflict.”
“We should not consider that facing a problem that the world has will make us a target or that it will change the situation in a country that has already had two attacks,” presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni told reporters about the consequences it could have for Argentina its alignment with Israel.
The official added that “terrorism always seeks to harm the weakest and that includes the entire planet and not us, and it does not change our position regarding something as reasonable as defending the free world.”
Argentina was the target of two attacks against its extensive Jewish community. In 1992 a bomb destroyed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and two years later another explosion demolished the headquarters of a Jewish center in the capital. Both attacks, which caused more than a hundred deaths, are attributed by the Argentine justice system to the Iranian regime with the material help of the Hezbollah militia.
Iran launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles towards Israel Saturday night in an unprecedented retaliation that brings the Middle East closer to a regional war.
Milei, who was abroad when the attack occurred, canceled a trip to Denmark and returned to Argentina on Sunday to form a crisis committee over the attack.
The leader of Libertad Avanza, a far-right ultraliberal, has sealed a strategic alliance with Israel and the United States after becoming president just over four months ago.
Adorni specified that security measures have been reinforced in Argentina, including greater border control, without giving further details.
“Our defense teams are in permanent contact with international agencies to monitor the situation and coordinate internal security policies,” said the official.
In his morning conference, López Obrador clarified that Mexico's position is not “definitive” but that the approach is “not to condemn any of the parties but to seek dialogue and to end the war” with greater participation of the United Nations to find “a fundamental solution to stop the fire.”
“I hope the (Israeli) authorities, as a show of good will, do not carry out retaliation for what Iran did” because otherwise it would be “escalating the conflict to a very risky situation,” he added. “War is irrational, synonymous with suffering and death, it benefits no one, not even the magnates… the war-mongering rulers,” he said, repeating a publication he launched on the social network X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday night.
According to him, Mexico has already had communication with Mexicans in the Middle East, about 1,400 people. “They report to us that everyone is fine.”
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