The US should provide comment on the scandalous Nord Stream report, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said. Washington owes the world an explanation on the sabotage of the Russian gas pipelines, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry says.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Friday that Washington owed the world an explanation, following the publication of journalist Seymour Hersh’s report, claiming the US was behind the September 2022 attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
“We have noted the reports,” Mao Ning said, responding to a question from Dragon TV. She added that the two Nord Stream pipelines were “vital transnational infrastructure” and that their destruction caused a serious economic and environmental impact. “If Hersh is telling the truth, what he revealed is clearly unacceptable and must be answered for. The US owes the world a responsible explanation,” Mao stated.
A follow-up question from the Beijing Youth Daily pointed out the sparse coverage of Hersh’s report by the “free, professional and impartial” US outlets. Mao responded:
It only proves that some media outlets care little about the truth. They pretend not to see the truth that really matters and, more often than not, try to sell false narratives rather than the truth.
Hersh, an investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize laureate, published a report titled “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline” on Wednesday. He cited a “source with direct knowledge of the operational planning” of the attack on the Russia-Germany pipelines. He claims a bomb was planted by the US during the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercises, and the explosive was then detonated by Norway dropping a sonar buoy from a military plane.
US Department of State spokesman Ned Price was asked about Hersh’s report on Thursday and dismissed it as “utter and complete nonsense.” He went on to label it as “propaganda” that he did not want to see “aired in the briefing room.”
In Germany, which jointly funded the construction of the Nord Stream pipelines, members of the AfD party demanded a discussion on the article and its claims in the country’s parliament on Friday. “The Bundestag has a right to know what the federal government knows,” said the party’s official Twitter account, citing parliamentary group leader Tino Chrupalla, RT reports
China has demanded that the United States “explain itself to the world” if the revelations in Seymour Hersh’s story about US intel being responsible for destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines are true, writes Paul Joseph Watson
The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist published an article this week in which he asserted that the pipelines were destroyed by the US as part of a covert operation.
According to Hersh’s sources, the explosives were planted in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise and were detonated three months later with a remote signal sent by a sonar buoy.
One source told Hersh that the plotters knew the covert operation was an “act of war,” with some in the CIA and State Department warning, “Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.”
Now Beijing is demanding that the White House address the issue, seemingly unimpressed with the Biden administration’s rather weak response to merely label the story “false”.
Earlier today, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning asserted that Washington would have to bear responsibility if the report is confirmed as accurate.
“If the conclusions of the investigation are true, then the US behavior is unacceptable,” the diplomat told reporters, adding that the US would need to “explain itself to the world community.”
The Kremlin also responded to the report by demanding a fresh international investigation into the attack, which was preceded by both Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland asserting that the pipelines would be taken out if Russia invaded Ukraine.
Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said Hersh’s article showed “the need for an open international investigation into this unprecedented attack on this critical infrastructure.”
“It’s a very important piece, which… must provoke the acceleration of the international probe. But we, on the contrary, witness attempts to silently wind down such international investigation,” he added.
Meanwhile, in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is also calling for a full inquiry.
“The Pulitzer Prize winner’s suspicions must be investigated,” wrote co-chairman of the AfD parliamentary group, Tino Chrupalla.
“Has NATO’s leading power carried out an attack on our country’s vital critical infrastructure in European waters? Then one would have to question whether the alliance guarantees security in Europe or rather endangers it. The consequence would be the withdrawal of all U.S. troops.”