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Russia Plants Flag In Arctic
Scientists, environmentalists and members of the international community are reeling after Moscow apparently broke with convention and made a land grab for a 460,000 square mile / 1.2 million square km oil-rich zone near the North Pole.
Russian scientists say that they have uncovered evidence which links its northern region with the North Pole via an underwater shelf.
A BBC graphic shows that the area claimed by Russia amounts to nearly half of the entire North Pole region.
As the Guardian reports, the Law of the Sea Convention has it that no country owns the North Pole. Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark, which border the region, are allowed to extend 200 mile "economic zones" from their coasts, but this zone can be extended if a nation can prove that the structure of the Arctic shelf is the same as the country's territory.
After a six week voyage on a nuclear icebreaker, Russian scientists conveniently found that the Lomonosov ridge was linked to Russian territory. Valery Kaminsky, director of the All-Russian Oceanic Scientific Research Institute, which carried out the survey, says he has "sensational photographic evidence" proving Russia's claim. He added that a US Senator's demand that a UN treaty limiting claims on the Arctic Zone be put into practice as soon as possible was inspired by "worry that the US was asleep while Russia worked."
Moscow's newspapers promptly published maps of the Artic with the entire zone coloured in Russian colours.
One Russian scientist, who doubts Moscow's claim, said that Russia would be wise not to attach too much significance to the ridge:
"Canada could make exactly the same claim", he said, "The Canadians could say that the Lomonosov ridge is part of the Canadian shelf, which means Russia should in fact belong to Canada, together with the whole of Eurasia."
It is reported that Canada and Denmark are already working on a counter-claim to the region. Some US supporters of the treaty argue that the US should sign in order to guarantee its own claims to the oil-rich region; opponents argue that the treaty represents a surrender of sovereignty to the United Nations. Supporters also claim that if the US signs, it will have a greater say in Moscow's claim to the region.
The Law of the Sea Convention is yet to be fully ratified by the US, though Russia and 152 other nations have signed it.
The region Russia claims is said to hold 10 billion tons of oil and natural gas, which scientists believe will be extracted relatively easily by the time other oil sources have dried up.
Watch this one: It could run and run. Judging by some countries' interest in guaranteed oil supplies and Russia's new-found belligerence, it could get nasty, too.
