BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — No country is immune to the terror of radical Islam and all countries must be part of the solution, Israel’s prime minister said in Buenos Aires.

Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday became the first sitting Israeli prime minister to visit Argentina, home to the largest Jewish community in Latin American and the first country from that region to open an embassy in Israel.

An hour after his arrival in Buenos Aires, Netanyahu visited the site of the Israeli embassy attacked in 1992 to reaffirm the current friendship between the two countries and to denounce the country that has attempted to destroy both the Jewish state and Jewish life in Argentina.

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“We are determined to fight Iran’s terrorism, and we are determined to prevent it from establishing itself near our border,” Netanyahu said. “It was Iran who in the 1990s was behind the major terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires. Iran’s terrorist octopus, from the Middle East, along with its proxy Hezbollah, continues to send arms to all parts of the world, and also to Latin America,” he said to a group gathered at the embassy site, which included Argentina´s vice president, Gabriela Michetti, and family members of three of the four Israeli diplomats who were murdered in the attack

From the site of the embassy destroyed in 1992, killing 29, he travelled to the AMIA Jewish community center AMIA, where 85 were killed in a bomb attack in 1994, attacked in 1994, also with a message against Iran and stressing Israel’s bonds with the Argentinean Jewish community.

Netanyahu spoke in Hebrew in the three main events during his first day in Buenos Aires, except for the moment when he spoke in English directly to the representatives of the United States invited by AMIA to the meeting to commemorate the 9-11 attacks. “We stand with you, we remember with you. We must fight terror together, always,” he said in English.

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The final event was at the Alvear palace hotel, with more than 600 members of the country’s Jewish community. AMIA President Agustin Zbar praised the “key moral leadership that Israel has in the world, fighting terror but under strict ethical rules.”

Netanyahu praised Argentina’s current president, Mauricio Macri, calling him “a true friend of Israel.  Argentina and Israel speak the same language,” he said.

The second day of the visit is scheduled to be more focused on political and economic agreements.

Netanyahu, who arrived with 30 Israeli businessmen, will meet Tuesday with Macri and also with Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes.

After his second day in Argentina, Netanyahu will travel north to Colombia for a few hours and then to Mexico to cap off his Latin American visit.

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