Argentina warns US against slandering Buenos Aires over debts

Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner has warned the United States against the serious consequences of what she called US officials’ slandering Buenos Aires over its debts.

In a harsh five-page letter on Friday, the Argentina president criticized US President Barack Obama’s choice of hire for a high-level advisory position in his administration.

“Could this be a case of namesakes?” Fernandez asks her American counterpart, referring to Nancy Soderberg, a politician who Obama appointed as head of a board at the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB), while also holding co-chair position at the American Task Force Argentina (ATFA), the most prominent well-funded lobby group in opposition to Argentina’s debt refinancing efforts.

According to the letter, the ATFA, which has spent millions of dollars lobbying against Argentina, is “an entity specifically created to attack and slander the Argentine Republic and its President.”

The Argentina president said it is a conflict of interest for Soderberg to give sound advice to the president and other US officials because Soderberg’s organization has received payments from one of the vulture funds.

“If confirmed by you, [this] would have grave implications for relations between our two countries,” Kirchner wrote in her letter.

“As you are certainly aware, the functions of the PIDB encompass sensitive issues of national security and include giving advice to the president and to other US executive branch officials,” she added.

Argentina is currently contesting its disputed debts in US courts.

The Argentinean Congress on September 11 unanimously voted in favor of a new debt restructuring plan enabling Buenos Aires to pay back the country’s debts to US creditors, sidestepping an earlier US court ruling in favor of the bondholders.