The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, summoned the Argentine ambassador in Santiago, Jorge Faurie, this Wednesday (17), to protest against statements made by the Minister of Security under Javier Milei's administration, Patricia Bullrich.
According to information from the Clarín newspaper, in statements to the Argentine press, the minister expressed concern on Monday (15) about Bolivia's relations with Iran, a supporter of Hezbollah, and said that there are fighters from the Lebanese terrorist group in Brazil and Chile .
“Hezbollah has cells that were discovered last year, but two [membros] fled in São Paulo. They are Iranian satellites. In Argentina, they acted under orders from Iran,” said Bullrich.
Last week, Room II of Argentina's Federal Court of Criminal Cassation attributed responsibility for two attacks in the country in the 1990s to Iran, concluding that they were carried out by Hezbollah “under the inspiration, organization, planning and financing of state and parastatal organizations subordinate” to Tehran.
They were the two biggest terrorist attacks in the history of the South American country: the attack in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people in 1994, at the headquarters of the Associação Mutual Israelita Argentina (Amia), and the attack on the Israeli Embassy two years earlier, which had left 29 dead.
The Chilean Interior Minister, Carolina Tohá, refuted Bullrich's statements and said that “at this moment, Chile has no threat of attacks from Hezbollah”. And she took the opportunity to needle the Argentine minister.
“When an authority has suspicions or a history of sensitive issues in this matter [terrorismo]the channel to make these observations is through intelligence collaboration and police collaboration”, stated Tohá.
The Chilean Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve, insinuated this Wednesday that the objective of the Milei government and “some United States senators” when talking about the alleged presence of Hezbollah in Chile would be to “damage the country's image”. Itamaraty has not yet commented on Bullrich's statements.
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