Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, accused of being one of the masterminds of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish social club in Buenos Aires, made a surprise, albeit brief visit to Bolivia on Tuesday.
Vahidi promised military assistance to the small Andean nation after visiting an air force academy in the eastern city of Santa Cruz.
Argentina wants Vahidi arrested on charges of being the mastermind of the July 9, 1994 bombing that leveled the seven-floor Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding
300.
It was the worst terrorist attack in Argentina, which has the largest Jewish community in the Americas outside the United States, and the second large-scale anti-Jewish strike in Buenos Aires that decade.
The current head of the AMIA, Guillermo Borger, blasted Vahidi's visit as "a provocation," and demanded that the government of President Cristina Kirchner issue a protest to La Paz.
But the protest was not necessary: Bolivia issued an apology and told Vahidi that must he leave immediately.
"I would like to convey in the name of the Bolivian government my deepest apologies," read the message signed by Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca and addressed to his Argentina counterpart, Hector Timerman.
Choquehuanca said the invitation was issued through the ministry of defense, which had no knowledge of Vahidi's controversial past.
The letter of apology was made public in Buenos Aires. The Bolivian government had not announced the visit, and tried to avoid questions on Vahidi.
Argentina has also linked Iran's former intelligence chief Ali Fallahian and the former head of the country's Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaei, as well as three Iranian diplomats to the 1994 bombing.
Argentine prosecutors allege Iran masterminded the bombing and entrusted the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to execute it.
In 1992, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was leveled in a bombing that killed 22 people and wounded 200.