Argentina expels Iranian diplomat after listing IRGC as 'terrorist' organization
On Tuesday, Argentina designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, citing its alleged role in backing Hezbollah and past attacks on Argentine soil.
Argentina on Thursday declared Iran’s charge d’affaires in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Tehrani, a “persona non-grata,” ordering him to leave the country within 48 hours.
A statement from Argentina’s Foreign Ministry said the expulsion was prompted by what it described as “false and offensive” accusations issued by Iran’s Foreign Ministry in response to Argentina's designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the move to designate the IRGC was instigated by the US and Israeli governments and called it a “strategic mistake and unforgivable insult to the Iranian nation.”
The Argentine Foreign Ministry said that Iran's remarks “constitute unacceptable interference in our country's internal affairs and a deliberate misrepresentation of decisions adopted in accordance with international law and national law.”
Announcing the designation on Tuesday, Argentine President Javier Milei’s office linked the move to the IRGC’s support for Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, which Argentina accuses of carrying out the 1994 bombing of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, the deadliest attack in the country’s history, and the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in the capital, which killed 29 and injured more than 200.
Milei’s office said the designation “enables the application of financial sanctions and operational restrictions” aimed at limiting the group’s activities.
The statement added that Argentine judicial and intelligence investigations have found that both the 1992 and 1994 attacks were “planned, financed and executed with the direct participation of senior officials of the Iranian regime and operatives of the Revolutionary Guard.”
Investigations into the bombings have been ongoing for decades. In 2024, a top Argentine court ruled that the Iranian government had masterminded the attack and that members of Hezbollah had carried it out.
In June 2025, Argentina announced it will try seven Iranian and three Lebanese nationals in absentia for the attack. Among those accused is former Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who was recently appointed head of the IRGC after his predecessor was killed in US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
In January, Argentina also designated the IRGC’s foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, as a terrorist organization.
The designations are in keeping with right-wing Milei’s policy of alignment with US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid the ongoing US-Israel war with Iran. Milei has backed the US and Israel in the war, and in March he said that Argentina "will see an improvement in its terms of trade because oil prices are rising, and Argentina is a net exporter."
In mid-March, Reuters reported that the US State Department had urged diplomats abroad to push US allies to designate the IRGC and Hezbollah as terrorist groups. In January, the European Union added the IRGC to its own terror list, a decision dismissed by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as a “PR stunt.”
