- International law must solve Arctic disputes
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed Thursday that all claims of Arctic coastal states should be considered on the basis of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Upfront of the Arctic Council meeting in Tromsø in April, Lavrov expressed the hope that Russia’s initiative to create security systems for the implementation of economic and infrastructure projects in the Arctic will be approved, reports Itar-Tass.
Sergey Lavrov presented Russia’s initiative to create such security systems when the Nordic Foreign Ministers of the Arctic states met at Greenland last May, reported by BarentsObserver. At the meeting was also present the US Deputy Secretary of State and Canada’s Natural Resources Minister.
- Countries of our region face non-military challenges. Challenges that emerge in the Arctic are climate change and ice cap melting, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday this week.
In May last year BarentsObserver wrote that also Denmark’s Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller said he expected countries around the North Pole to respect international laws when settling territorial claims in the Arctic.
- As for possible disputed issues, we call for resolving them on the basis of the internationl law and through existing mechanisms of the law of the sea, Sergey Lavrov said quoted by Itar-Tass.
The Ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council will be in Tromsø, Norway on the 28th and 29th of April. Norway has been the chair state of the Arctic Council since it took over from Russia in 2006.
Earlier in February BarentsObserver wrote that the upcoming Arctic Council meeting in Tromsø could be an arena for discussions of non-military, but still security related issues in the Arctic.
Some of the issues were presented in the Nordic defence cooperation study presented by former Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Thorvald Stoltenberg in Oslo on February 9th, reported by BarentsObserver.
Among Thorvald Stoltenberg’s proposals is the establishment of joint maritime rapid action group based on the countries’ coast guards and rescue services. The Barents member states do already have a common experience by the bi-annual Barents Rescue exercises. Barents Rescue 2009 will be in the Murmansk area later this year.
