Summit seeks accord on Arctic sovereignty by Radka Konkolova

The envoys of five the most fluent countries of the North hemisphere,which possess their own pieces in the Arctic Ocean met together yesterday, on Wednesday, 28th May, in Greenland's town Ilulissat. They wanted to bargain about their aspiration of given part of the ocean. It is also because according to the US Geological Survey there is about 25 per cent of world undiscovered reserves of gas and oil, what is quite big amount, especially these days. So every country wants to swoop up the best and the biggest part of the ocean bottom. Otherwise, Greenland is semi autonomous area of Denmark, so it probably will make an aspiration to get the majority... On the negotiation there met foreign ministers of Denmark, Norway and Russia and minister of natural sources of Canada as well as deputy of American Foreign Office. There was a significant fight among these countries which heated up as the melting polar ice allow better access to this region and under the water. But Denmark minister said yesterday, that the race for the North Pole had been canceled. They signed the declaration which should reflect the will of all participants to resolve issue which will be in accordance to the international law. The extent is about 200 nautical miles zone. It should be divided to these five countries till 2020. The institution which has got the responsibility of all of this in its hands is UNO, probably because of transparency of the dividing. Envoys of these states also want to cooperate with the International Maritime Organisation to improve the safety of maritime navigation and transportation. They want to strengthen existing restrictions and make new ones too, to prevent or reduce the risk of ship-based pollution in this ocean. Another target hey have is to develop the scientific research there. On the other hand, the inhabitants of this island are against such decisions. The spokesman of Inuits said, that it was not fair to make decisions about their mother land and seas and about the ownership of them without any discussing or bargaining with them, only because of the interest of five strong countries. Last year there was reported, that Russian expedition which was made in this part of the world was very successful and Russians left on the bottom of the sea, in more than 4,000 meters depth, their national flag, what was almost implausible for the rest world, but probably it doesn't matter...

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080528/sc_afp/arcticenvironmentenergy;_ylt=AoGXMaHElooH1PyN.811H1Os0NUE

by Radka Konkolova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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