Port fire began with small flame, cause still unclear: interior minister

“The port explosion happened due to false declarations about the imported cargo," ILNA news agency reported citing the CEO of Sina Port and Marine Services Company (SPMCO), where the explosion occurred at Rajaei port in its private area.

"Extremely dangerous goods were declared as regular items and stored in the port," Saeid Jafari was quoted as saying.

"The explosion was a result of repeatedly providing false information about hazardous materials and delivering these goods without the necessary documentation and hazardous material labels."

He added that "the power, blast wave, and destruction radius, along with other characteristics of the explosion, indicate that the cargo involved was highly dangerous and should have been declared as hazardous at the port."

Sina Port and Marine Services Company (SPMCO), an affiliate of the Islamic Republic's Mostazafan Foundation, is subject to the US Treasury Department's secondary sanctions.

Former US national security advisor Jake Sullivan believes the Trump administration will probably clinch a nuclear deal with Tehran similar to the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which Trump withdrew from in 2018.

“I think there is a possibility that they could get a deal,” Sullivan told ABC News.

“I think that deal, in its elements, won’t look too different from the deal that President Obama and Secretary Kerry produced in the Obama administration that Donald Trump ripped up," he added during his interview with This Week program.

Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights advocate Narges Mohammadi blamed the Islamic Republic for the tragedy in Bandar Abbas, calling it the "root of all disasters."

"We are mourning not only the lives lost, but also the hardship of living under a despotic, inefficient, and unaccountable regime. The Islamic Republic, concerned only with its own survival, has no regard for its people. It bears no responsibility for the suffering it causes," she said in a post on her Instagram page.

"We are living amid tragedies. The greatest tragedy — the root of all disasters — is the regime itself: a regime that shirks responsibility."

Mohammadi called the Islamic Republic "a regime concerned solely with its own survival, where the people have no place."

"It is we, the people of Iran, who must find a way to overcome this situation. With hope, solidarity, and determination, we will bring this painful chapter to an end."

The type of fire and smoke confirms that the explosive material was a derivative of sodium, and that a container is by no means a suitable vessel for storing sodium perchlorate, as the heat inside a container cannot be controlled, Farzin Nadimi, a senior defense and security analyst at the Washington Institute, told Iran International.

He said it did not appear that the containers were refrigerated, and the rise in temperature could have been one of the factors triggering the reaction and fire.

“If someone wanted to cause such a reaction leading to a fire, it would be very easy to set off an explosion in such a shipment. It did not seem that there were any serious security measures in place beyond surveillance cameras," Nadimi said regarding the possibility of an act of sabotage.

According to the analyst, either a person or an aerial device could have been responsible.

Nadimi added: “In the video, we did not see anything hitting the container from the sky, but on the ground, a very small and simple explosive device could have triggered the initial fire.”

A senior Iranian lawmaker said on Sunday that the explosion at the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, which he blamed on Israel, would not impact ongoing talks with the US.

Mohammad Seraj, a member of Iran’s parliament representing Tehran, said that the blasts, which struck multiple containers simultaneously, showed clear signs of sabotage orchestrated by Israeli forces.

"This incident will have no effect on the course of negotiations," Seraj said."The Zionists (Israel) are attempting to disrupt Iran’s international relations, but the Iranian people are too wise to be deceived by such conspiracies."

Seraj dismissed the possibility of a natural fire, arguing that chemical materials typically ignite at a single point and would not cause simultaneous explosions at multiple locations.

Iran has not formally accused Israel at the state level, and the investigation into the cause of the explosions is ongoing.