Judiciary orders action against those responsible for port explosion

The fire at Rajaei port symbolized the collapse of the Islamic Republic, said Iranian filmmaker and former political prisoner Jafar Panahi.

"The Bandar Abbas fire is the flame of a regime’s collapse that has turned Iran to ashes over nearly half a century, resulting in poverty, corruption, discrimination, repression, destruction of infrastructure, and global isolation," Panahi wrote in a post on Instagram.

“An unaccountable system ruling in the name of religion and security had become the nation’s main enemy.”

Panahi called for a peaceful resolution through "a free and transparent referendum under international supervision" to restore sovereignty to the people.

The following video shows rescue teams at Rajaei Port in Bandar Abbas were clearing debris at the site of explosion on Monday.

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.

US President Donald Trump's optimistic pronouncements regarding negotiations with Iran are primarily an effort to maintain Tehran's engagement in the talks, according to Shahram Kholdi, a professor of international relations.

Speaking to Iran International, Kholdi characterized Trump's optimism as a strategy to prevent any disruption to the process.

"Trump is trying to paint a silver lining around this very gray and ambiguous cloud of negotiations, in the hope that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel and the Islamic Republic agrees to stop enrichment," he said.

Kholdi said that Trump's expressions of confidence are largely intended to keep the Iranian delegation at the negotiating table. "Trump's optimism is mostly to keep the other side at the negotiating table."