Argentina orders Iranian diplomat out

Argentina has declared Iranian chargé d'affaires and counsellor Mohsen Soltani Tehrani persona non grata, ordering him to leave the country within 48 hours, the Argentine Foreign Ministry announced Thursday.

The expulsion follows a statement from Iran's Foreign Ministry containing what Buenos Aires described as "false, offensive and unfounded accusations" against Argentina and its authorities,  a diplomatic provocation that left the government of President Javier Milei with little appetite for restraint.

The move did not come in isolation. Two days earlier, Argentina had taken the significant step of formally designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, a declaration that placed Buenos Aires firmly in the camp of those countries that view Iran's armed apparatus not as a legitimate military force, but as a state-sponsored instrument of terror.

Argentina's hostility toward Iran is not new. The country suffered one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Latin American history when the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires was bombed in 1994, killing 85 people. Argentine prosecutors have long accused Iranian officials and Hezbollah of orchestrating the attack, an accusation Tehran has consistently denied.

Under President Milei, Argentina has adopted an unapologetically pro-Western and pro-Israel foreign policy, deepening its break with the Iranian regime and aligning itself openly with those seeking to hold Tehran accountable for decades of regional destabilisation.