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Argentina denies suspending commercial ties with Iran

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-03 10:06

BUENOS AIRES -- Argentina on Tuesday denied its halting commercial ties with Iran due to an old diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

Argentine Justice, Security and Human Rights Minister Anibal Fernandez denied he had told Julio Schloser, general secretary of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association, that the Argentine government had decided to suspend commercial ties with Iran.

According to reports of the Jewish News Agency, Fernandez told Schloser and a visiting delegation of the American Jewish Committee that the country would halt commercial ties with Iran.

Fernandez's spokesman Fernando Coradazzi said that Fernandez "did not make announcement related to issues that are not of his competence."

Coradazzi added that the minister only talked about specific issues on  the agenda with leaders of the Jewish community during their meeting.

Argentina froze its diplomatic ties with Iran after a bomb attack at a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 people.

Argentine authorities believed the Iranian government was related to the attacks.

Argentina has the second largest Jewish community only after the United States in the Americas.