In the face of the conflicting claims of Denmark and Russia concerning the North Pole, Russia suggested reaching a delimitation agreement with Denmark.
In the face of the conflicting claims of Denmark and Russia concerning the North Pole, Russia suggested reaching a delimitation agreement with Denmark to alleviate potential tension between the two countries, as Local Denmark reported on September 8, 2016.
Regarding Russian and Danish Arctic claims, there is a 550,000-square-kilometer overlap, including the North Pole point.
According to
Russian Minister of Natural Resources Sergey Donskoy :«In this connection, to speed up the handling of the Russian bid, it will be helpful to hold bilateral consultations with the Danish side on the issue of signing a deal on a preliminary delimitation of the adjacent parts of the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.» Russia submitted its Arctic claim to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in 2015 for an extension of its Arctic shelf.
However, the U.N. body found last year's submission of claims to be insufficient. Russia's bid covers a 1.3 million-square-kilometer area and also includes the North Pole. It first made an official submission of its claims in 2001.
Denmark is the first country in the world to attempt to claim outright ownership of the North Pole. Since then, the country has made three claims on areas off the coast of Greenland that total over 1 million square kilometers, acting provocatively in the region.
Danish Defense Minister Peter Christensen stated that the country sees the Arctic region as «a priority, now and in the future,» while seeking more cooperation with Greenland to extend its territorial claims in the region.
Apart from Russia and Denmark, Canada also joined the territorial dispute by trying to extend its territorial claims in the Arctic to include the North Pole.
The Arctic region is one of the major disputed areas between Russia and Western countries. Countries with territories in the Arctic avoid risking military conflict around the North Pole with Russia.
The Arctic Council is composed of 8 member countries with arctic territory: Russia, Canada, the U.S., Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Finland; Germany, China and India have observer status.
The Arctic Council aims to assess the threats of climate change and its effects on living conditions in the region around the North Pole and new opportunities to open ocean trade routes and
offshore oil fields.
Out of the Arctic Council members, only Norway's claims over part of the Arctic Ocean have been approved by the U.N.
The Arctic is very rich in mineral resources and is an area of land and sea that is mostly covered in ice. The area covers 20 to 30 million square kilometers and is believed to hold 30 % of the world's undiscovered natural gas and one-seventh of its untapped oil reserves.
Author:
Daily Sabah
