Lawmaker blames port explosion on ‘mismanagement and internal failures’

"We believe that the rights of the people of Azerbaijan must be respected, and Karabakh must belong to the country of Azerbaijan. Karabakh is an inseparable part of the soil of Azerbaijan, and we respect that," Masoud Pezeshkian said during a meeting with Azerbaijani officials in Baku on Monday.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev officially welcomed Pezeshkian at the Zagulba Presidential Palace on Monday afternoon, followed by a private meeting between the two leaders and a joint session of their high-ranking delegations.

Tensions between Tehran and Baku have run high for years, largely due to Baku's close ties with Iran's nemesis Israel and a January 2023 attack on Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran.

Last week, Pezeshkian expressed hopes for a rapid improvement in relations and cooperation between the two countries as part of a broader effort to mend ties.

Iran and Azerbaijan held two-day joint naval exercises in the Caspian Sea in November, in moves towards rapprochement.

Pezeshkian’s remarks come a month after Iran welcomed a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a decades-long dispute rooted in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's dissolution, saw a significant development in March when both Azerbaijan and Armenia announced an agreement on the text of a peace treaty.

Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but historically with a majority ethnic Armenian population, had long been a flashpoint between the two South Caucasus nations. 

Iran, sharing a northern border with both countries, has consistently underscored its interest in regional stability, particularly along its 44-kilometer frontier with Azerbaijan.

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.

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."

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."

“They had to rescue Assad,” Netanyahu said, adding that Iran wanted to send “one or two airborne divisions” to help the Syrian leader.

“We stopped that. We sent some F-16s to some Iranian planes that were making some routes to Damascus,” he said. “They turned back.”

Netanyahu made the announcement on Sunday in a speech which revealed insights into the country’s role in the fall of the long-time ruler, who was overthrown by insurgents in December.

At a Jewish News Syndicate conference, he said that Tehran sought to bolster Assad's position, especially after Hezbollah, a major ally in Lebanon, sustained considerable losses during last year's conflict with Israel.

Targeted airstrikes decimated Hezbollah's leadership, killing scores of top figures, including its long-time head Hassan Nasrallah, and obliterating extensive infrastructure both above and below ground.