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New Kirkenes declaration in progress

Next January marks the 20th anniversary of signing the Kirkenes declaration establishing the Barents cooperation. Norway now wants to take successful cross-border cooperation a step further and asks for input to a Kirkenes declaration, part II.

Location

Under Norway’s chairmanship of the Barents Council a high level meeting will be held to mark the 20th. anniversary of the Barents Cooperation, probably in June 2013.

The ministry of foreign affairs in Oslo has set up an informal working group, led by Sverre Jervell, a senior Norwegian diplomat who was engaged in the drafting of the Kirkenes Declaration of 1993, that will make a draft “Kirkenes II”.

“The meeting will provide an opportunity to review lessons learned after 20 years of cooperation and identify new challenges and priorities for the future cooperation. As chair of the Barents council, Norway may propose that the lessons learned, new challenges and priorities are set out in a separate document named Kirkenes-II,” says Sverre Jervell to BarentsObserver.

The group will maintain close informal contacts with the representatives of the countries involved and key regional actors. The draft will be passed on to the Norwegian chair of the Barents council.

Sverre Jervell says the informal group will end its work late in the autumn 2012 and would welcome any ideas and input to this process.  “Send us inputs in Russian, English or Norwegian,” Jervell says. The group’s email address is: [email protected].