BEIJING, February 10. /TASS/. Washington should be held accountable if the Nord Stream gas pipeline blasts were the work of the United States, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday.

"If an investigation confirms [these] facts, it’s impossible to just tolerate it. Such actions should bring about liability," she said at a briefing, commenting on the findings of US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

The Chinese diplomat specified that if Washington was proven guilty, the US "will have to provide responsible clarifications to the world." According to Mao Ning, the Nord Stream explosions "had an extremely negative impact on the global environment and the global energy market."

On February 8, Hersh wrote in an article, citing sources, that US Navy divers had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines under the cover of the BALTOPS exercise in June 2022. According to the journalist, the decision to conduct the operation was made by US President Joe Biden. White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a comment to TASS that Hersh’s account was utterly false and complete fiction.