Washington: Ned Price, a spokesman for the State Department, told reporters on Wednesday that because the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines did not occur on US soil, Washington believes it would be most appropriate for the nations whose territory was involved to investigate them.
Price said during the daily briefing that he would "leave it to our partners to speak to the appropriate investigative mechanisms on whose territory - on whose soil as it were - these blasts occurred."
Price declined to comment on the report that Russia has requested an international investigation into the September 2022 explosions that damaged the Baltic Sea pipelines that once carried Russian natural gas to Germany. Russia has called a session of the UN Security Council for the following week.
"I'll reiterate what we've said before: Everything Moscow and the Kremlin have told us is a lie. The claim that the US was behind what happened with Nord Stream 2, er, the Nord Stream blasts, is complete nonsense, according to Price.
This is the message that we have consistently communicated in the face of these lies that Russian officials have repeated, and we will communicate them (sic) again if we have to, in any form.”
Russia has previously claimed that the UK and US "benefited" from the destruction of the pipeline but has refrained from directly accusing Washington. But investigative journalist Seymour Hersh did precisely that in a Substack piece that was published last week.
Also Read: The UN Security Council unanimously agrees to extend sanctions against Yemen's Houthis.
According to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a Norwegian aeroplane provided the signal for the explosives to detonate as she described how the US divers planted the explosives.
Hersh's account was rejected by the White House as "utterly false and complete fiction." At a briefing last week, Price himself referred to it as "utter and complete nonsense," which led his Russian counterpart Maria Zakharova to charge him with "once again lying live on air, openly mocking journalists who asked fully justified questions."
Hersh maintained his claims in an interview with the German publication Berliner Zeitung over the weekend, saying that US President Joe Biden "would rather see Germany freeze than Germany possibly stop supporting Ukraine."
In the meantime, in response to a question regarding a potential UN investigation into the Nord Stream sabotage, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric stated on Tuesday that the global organisation would need to "have a mandate, which we clearly do not."
Also Read: Mexico has announced the largest synthetic drug lab bust to date.
Denmark is a member of NATO, and the explosions took place in its waters. It, along with neighbouring Sweden, which is attempting to join the US-led bloc, have all but ignored Russian requests for an investigation. A former Norwegian prime minister serves as NATO's current secretary general.
