US President Barack Obama continues to receive heavy flak for defending the nuclear deal he initiated with Iran, and then enlisting the support of his allies in the Senate to prevent rival Republican leaders from blocking its implementation.
Now, Obama will likely face more criticism after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner revealed in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Monday that a former Obama administration official tried to convince Argentina to provide nuclear fuel to Iran sometime in 2010.
In her remarks witnessed by world leaders, Kirchner recalled how Gary Samore, who once worked as the White House's top advisor on nuclear issues, visited Argentina in 2010.
"He came to see us in Argentina with a mission, with an objective: under the control of IAEA, the international organization in the field of weapons control and nuclear regulation, Argentina had supplied in the year 1987, during the first democratic government, the nuclear fuel for the reactor known as Tehran," Kirchner narrated.
The Argentine leader said Samore talked with Argentina's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hector Timerman, to inform him of ongoing negotiations for Iran to cease or minimise its uranium enrichment activities.
Kirchner claimed that Iran wanted to enrich its Tehran nuclear reactor for these negotiations to prosper.
To bring this about, Samore supposedly asked Argentina "to provide the Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear fuel."
Kirchner said the Argentine government asked Samore to formalise his request for fuel transfer in writing, but the former White House official did not give any further feedback.
Samore confirmed to The Blaze that he indeed flew to Buenos Aires a few years back "to ask Foreign Minister Timmerman if Argentina would be willing to manufacture fresh fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor in exchange for Iran shipping most of its stockpile of low enriched uranium to Russia."
He added that the deal involving Argentina did not push through because Iran refused to participate in the project due to "political sensitivities."
