AMIA: Iran rejects Argentine proposal on third country's trial

Through addressing a letter to the United Nations General Assembly, Iran's government has officially rejected the Argentine proposal urging the Islamic Republic to jointly pick a neutral country in which a series of Iranian officials -already accused by an Argentine court of being involved in the AMIA Jewish Centre bombing- could be taken to trial.

Iranian Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaee signed the document with stated his nation was firmly against accepting the measure President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner unveiled in her speech before the UN General Assembly on September 24. That time, she had called on Tehran to "agree in a joint accord on a third country where fair trials could be held." Iran's government has qualified the proposal as "non-feasible".

According to Argentine prosecutors, Iran is the alleged mastermind behind the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA).

Buenos Aires has issued warrants for the arrest of Iranian Defense Minister Ahmed Vahidi and five other Iranians and a Lebanese accused of planning and carrying out the bombing of the AMIA, which claimed the lives of 85 people.

Tehran is also suspected to be behind an attack on the Israeli embassy in the Argentine capital in 1992 in which 29 people died.