He urged not to engage in political speculation on the causes of the explosion in the Lebanese capital.
“According to the most convincing data, during the repair work there was a fire, and then a monstrous explosion of the hangar, in which ammonium nitrate confiscated from the damaged ship was stored since 2014, so we are talking about flagrant violations of safety measures,” the diplomat said.
In his opinion, the incident occurred due to "an obvious oversight and negligence of the control authorities."
The ambassador added that “the issue of disposal of explosive nitrate was regularly put on the agenda”.
Earlier, the Red Cross reported that an explosion in the port of Beirut could have killed at least 100 people. About 4 thousand more citizens were injured, including about 50 UN employees.