Newly leaked recordings reveal that former Argentine foreign minister Héctor Timerman knew that Iran was responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Amia Jewish centre in Buenos Aires even as he negotiated with the regime in Tehran.

The secret conversation between Mr Timerman and Guillermo Borger, the then-president of Amia in 2012, went as follows:

Borger: We don’t regard Iran as valid [as a negotiating partner].

Timerman: And who do you want me to negotiate with, Switzerland?

Borger: I will just say that Iran lies, is not credible and denies the Holocaust.

Timerman: But we don’t have anyone else to negotiate with […] Well, tell me who you want me to negotiate with?

Borger: I understand, I wish there was someone else to negotiate with.

Timerman: If there was someone else, they [the Iranians] wouldn’t have planted the bomb. So we are back to the beginning. Do you have someone else for me to negotiate with?

In a second recording, Mr Timerman continues: “Eighteen years ago they [the Iranians] planted the bomb. You don’t tell me who I should negotiate with, you tell me who I shouldn’t negotiate with. What a smartass you are, so who do you want me to negotiate with?”

It is unclear who made the recordings or why they have been leaked now.

The car-bomb attack on the Amia Jewish community centre in the heart of Buenos Aires killed 85, injured hundreds and reduced the building to rubble. No one has ever been convicted for the crime, although it has long been suspected that Iran was to blame.