- Generally, we are satisfied with the way cooperation in the Arctic was developing. We have settled plenty of issues and outlined our major goals for 2011, says Ambassador at Large and Senior Arctic Official of the Russian Federation Anton Vasiliyev in an interview with Voice of Russia.
He calls the signing of the delineation agreement in Murmansk in September one of the key events in Arctic cooperation in 2010 and expects it to open new possibilities for cooperation between Moscow and Oslo in the Arctic region.
Contacts between the five major Arctic nations - Russia, Canada, the US, Denmark and Norway - have also become more active, Vasiliyev states. They have recently set up a joint group to carry out hydrographic survey aimed at improving navigation in the region. Coast guards of the Arctic G5 agreed to hold a special meeting next year.
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Vasiliyev calls the outgoing year especially successful for Russia as ‘our country managed to gather enough scientific evidence proving that the Lomonosov Ridge underneath the Pole, and the Mendeleev Ridge are extensions of the Eurasian continent’. He adds that he believes all Arctic nations will get access to the shelf diplomatically, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
