The U.S. administration is interested in cooperation and not completion with Russia in the Arctic, Mr. Burns said in this week’s Russia World Forum in Washington,
RIA Novosti
reports.
-Despite the fact that many skeptics consider the Arctic a ground for competition, we believe that the Arctic is a ground for cooperation with Russia, Mr. Burns said. -The Arctic could play the role as a possible field of cooperation and a contact point between our countries, he added.
That statement comes just few days after Russian Ambassador to the Arctic Council and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council Anton Vasiliev said the preservation of peace and stability in the Arctic is a Russian national priority. The ambassador also said that Russia has no intention to place military special forces in the Arctic, because it “sees no need for a militarization of the region”,
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
reports.
-We have to restore what exists and create new infrastructure, which can help us control the situation in the Arctic, Mr. Vasiliev said in the newspaper interview. He also expressed hope that the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf will approve the Russian claims in the region. Those claims are expected to be handed in the to the UN body in short time.
As
BarentsObserver
reported, Norway in mid-April became the first Arctic nation to settle an agreement with the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in the north. Norway’s newly defined continental shelf in the north covers 235,000 km2 or three-quarters the size of mainland Norway.
