Israel wants clarifications from Argentina over a report it offered Iran to stop investigating bombings on Jewish centres in Buenos Aires in the 1990s in exchange for better trade ties, an Israeli foreign ministry official.
"We are still waiting for an official comment from the Argentinian Foreign Ministry," Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told The Jerusalem Post Monday.
"If this is true, then it would be a display of infinite cynicism and a dishonour to the dead." he said.
The foreign ministry is said to be considering cancelling Argentinian Foreign Minister Hector Timerman's upcoming visit to Israel until clarifications are made.
On Saturday, the Argentinian paper Perfil quoted a leaked Iranian cable detailing the offer to Iran.
"Argentina is no longer interested in solving these two attacks but would rather improve its economic relations with Iran," the tabloid said, quoting an Iranian document it had obtained.
Eighty-five people were killed and 200 were injured when a bomb exploded in a van outside the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association on July 18, 1994, the country's bloodiest terrorist attack.
The centre, a symbol for Argentina's Jewish population of more than 300,000, was destroyed two years after a bomb flattened the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people.
Argentine officials claim that Iran orchestrated the attacks and that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group carried it out. But no one has been indicted despite the fact that Israel and the US have been assisting in the investigation.
The Argentine Foreign Ministry has not commented.
Foreign Minister Hector Timerman’s father is a Jewish journalist and left-wing activist who was jailed by the military junta in Argentina and was released after Israeli diplomatic efforts.
He immigrated to Israel in the early 1980s but returned to Argentina after the government change.