Mauricio Macri
Mauricio MacriReuters

Argentine President Mauricio Macri will ask US President Barack Obama to declassify information held by American agencies about the 1994 terrorist attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, reports JTA.

Macri will make the request during Obama’s visit to Argentina, which begins Tuesday.

Luis Czyzewski, whose 21-year-old daughter Paola was murdered in the AMIA bombing, told JTA that he had written a letter to Macri asking him to request the declassification, and that the president had obliged.

“The US government mentioned that during this trip, Obama will announce that US agencies will declassify information about the last dictatorship in Argentina, so I asked the Argentine government in a written letter to also ask Obama about all information that US agencies have regarding the 1994 AMIA attack,” Czyzewski explained.

Argentina’s human rights secretary, Claudio Avruj, who was one of the liaisons between relatives of AMIA victims and the government, told JTA that it is "highly probable" that Macri and Obama "will also talk about terrorism, the Iranian role, the memorandum of understanding that Argentina signed with Iran, and in this context seems very natural that we ask for all the information that the US has."

The secretary of strategic affairs, Fulvio Pompeo, confirmed to Czyzewski that Macri will ask Obama for the information.

US agencies have worked in cooperation with Argentina, especially after then-President Bill Clinton visited Buenos Aires in 1997.

Earlier this month, leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urged Obama to meet with survivors of the AMIA attack and the 1992 terrorist attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires during his Argentina visit, which follows his visit to Cuba. Thus far it appears he has no intention of holding such a meeting.

Last week, a federal judge in Argentina rejected a request to reopen an investigation into allegations by the late special prosecutor Alberto Nisman, according to which former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the AMIA bombing.

Meanwhile, a separate investigation into Nisman’s own mysterious death 14 months ago may be sent to a federal court, after a prosecutor confirmed that Nisman is believed to have been murdered.