Héctor Timerman, Argentina’s new foreign minister, gives a two-page interview to Pagina/12 today in which he says the following with regard to Argentina’s attempts to have a number of Iranians extradited to  answer charges of having been responsible for the AMIA massacre,

The case of Iran is simple. An Argentina court has asked for the extradition because it says it has evidence connecting them to the attack on the AMIA and wants to question them. It’s up to Iran to extradite them to Argentina, where they will receive due process. We have always placed our reliance on the path of justice and respect for human rights. But Iran should be aware that Argentina isn’t going to give up on its request to bring these people to justice. We suffered two attacks, first against the Embassy of Israel and then against the AMIA. Since 2003 the government has supported the demands of the courts. We are not taking other measures. We are not going to pursue other measures.

As I have translated the above text from Spanish into diplomatese, let me now translate it into English.

Hey there, everybody in Tehran, I mean both the government and terrorist suspects, you can all pour yourselves another cup of tea and relax. Neither I nor the government are going to do anything to make your lives uncomfortable. We’re not going to further downgrade diplomatic relations nor do anything that would damage trade. And don’t think for a minute that we’re going to ask our  allies Presidents Chávez of Venezuela and President Lula of Brazil, both of whom are friends of yours too, to use their good offices to encourage you to hand over the suspects. And call for and support tougher sanctions against Iran and bring up your sheltering of terrorist suspects in every forum that is available to us? Ha! Ha!  Do you think we are completely stupid?

Yes, yes, we have to keep supporting the call for some of you guys to be extradited but that’s just a show to please the gallery and, especially, the leadership of the local Jewish community. We don’t any trouble from them do we? And note that I said that the court “said” that it had evidence against the suspects, I didn’t say that I thought such evidence existed. See how far I’m willing to go to give you guys peace of mind? I’m not even willing to give credit to the decisions of a federal court of my country. Well, on that note I’ll sign off, enjoy the rest of your weekend.