Rajaei port received a shipment of missile fuel chemicals in March, the Australian Financial Review reported.
According to the newspaper, the material was transported by two vessels from China to Iran and was intended to replenish the Islamic Republic’s missile stockpiles.
An Iranian newspaper close to parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibafsaid that the recent explosion at the Rajaei port in southern Iran might be a deliberate act to undermine ongoing negotiations with the United States.
In an editorial, Sobh-e No daily said that while the cause of the large blast remains officially undetermined, the timing of the incident alongside nuclear talks and threatening rhetoric from Israel warranted consideration of potential sabotage aimed at derailing diplomatic progress.
"The swift news reporting by foreign media and the creation of rumors regarding the containers that caught fire is the same scenario of disrupting the negotiation atmosphere by the Zionist regime,” read the article.
The newspaper highlighted a prior warning from Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who tweeted two days before the explosion about potential disruptive actions by Israel against the Iran-US nuclear diplomacy. Araghchi had said that Iranian security forces were on high alert for potential sabotage and assassination attempts.
“Considering the political aspects of this incident, the economic sensitivity of this port, and the history of attacks on nuclear facilities, the possibility of sabotage cannot be ignored; just as the possibility of negligence and a natural accident also exists."
Toxic gas is still leaking from the site of the Rajaei Port explosion, complicating recovery efforts, an Iranian Red Crescent official said. “We are still witnessing the release of poisonous gases at the blast site and hope to soon reach the depth of the explosion for a full cleanup,” Babak Mahmoudi, deputy head of the organization said.
