US says up to countries where Nord Stream blast occurred to probe it
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The US Department of State says the countries where the Nord Stream explosions took place are the ones concerned with probing the blasts.
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A Russian construction worker speaks on a mobile phone during a ceremony marking the start of Nord Stream pipeline construction in Portovaya Bay some 170 kms (106 miles) north-west from St. Petersburg, Russia on April 9, 2010 (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, File)
The decision on how the Nord Stream blasts are investigated rests in the hands of the countries on whose soil the incidents took place, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said when asked whether the United Nations should play a role in probing the incident suspected to be an act of sabotage.
"This blast did not occur on US soil," Price said when asked whether the UN should have a hand in the probe.
"I would leave it to our partners on whose territory, on whose soil… this blast occurred to speak to the appropriate investigative mechanisms," Price told a press briefing on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday that the United Nations would need a mandate from its legislative body to investigate the blasts that took place in the Baltic Sea in September 2022.
The explosions occurred on September 26 at three of the four strings of Nord Stream 1 and 2 underwater pipelines, which are designed to transport a total of 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe each year.
Separate investigations were launched by Germany, Denmark, and Sweden into the suspected sabotage, with German media reporting trust issues among the three EU nations. The Russian prosecutor's office announced an investigation into possible international terrorism.
However, Denmark and Sweden have barred Russia from investigating the attack. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said this exclusion highlighted the West's double standards.
Read more: US prefers frozen Germany over one not aiding Ukraine - Seymour Hersh
Renowned US investigative journalist and Pulitzer award winner Seymour Hersh winner had said last week that US Navy divers planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines in late 2022.
"Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning," Hersh wrote in his Substack newsletter.
The White House responded and dismissed the claims as "false and complete fiction."
Hersh later confirmed to the Russian news agency Sputnik that he authored the investigative report in question.
Flightradar24 data showed in late September that US military helicopters habitually and on numerous occasions circled for hours over the site of the Nord Stream pipeline incident near Bornholm Island.
A US Navy Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopter spent hours loitering over the location of the damaged natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea near Bornholm for several days in a row, September 1, 2, and 3, in particular.
According to the article, the United States decided to sabotage the pipelines after a lengthy debate that lasted more than nine months inside the US national security community.
According to the article, the United States decided to sabotage the pipelines after a lengthy debate that lasted more than nine months inside the US national security community.
