Russia stakes claims to Arctic resource base

The Russian bear is starting to throw its weight around in more than Georgia these days, making it clear the use of a mini-submarine to plant a flag under the North Pole last year was more than just an empty gesture.

At the same time Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took senior cabinet ministers to Inuvik, Northwest Territories, last month to bolster his claims to Arctic sovereignty, there was an unparalleled gathering of Russia’s national security council to drive home  Security Secretary Nikolai Patrushev’s assertion that the Arctic will become its “major strategic resource base.”

The council, comprising defense and interior ministers and speakers of Russia’s legislative houses, met at the Nagurskaya military base on a High Arctic island.

Harper, in his pre-election campaign polar trek, said the discovery so far of oil, natural gas, minerals and diamonds in the Beaufort, Eastern Arctic, Nunavut, NWT and Yukon is “merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg.”

Certain of Canada’s territorial claims to a large chunk of the Arctic, he said its share of “this incredible endowment will fuel the prosperity of our country for generations.”

The Russians are just as confident they have rights, prompting Canada’s Defense Minister Peter MacKay to acknowledge that “we’re obviously very much concerned about much of what Russia has been doing lately.”

He said Canada has been on the alert lately for Arctic patrol flights by Russian bombers, intercepting those planes with F0-18s.

“We remind them that this is sovereign Canadian airspace and they turn back,” MacKay said. “And we’re going to continue to do that.”

But turning back doesn’t mean a retreat by Russia whose President Dmitry Medvedev said Sept. 17 his country should legislate its claims to disputed Arctic territory.

“We must finalize and adopt a federal law on the southern border of Russia’s Arctic zone,” he told Russia’s Security Council.

“We have to ensure the long-term national interests of Russia in the Arctic,” Medvedev said.

Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark have until May 2009 to file new ownership claims with a United Nations commission.

That’s where Russia is expected to insist it has jurisdiction over much of the Arctic because of an underwater ridge linking Siberia to the seabed that extends under the North Pole.

—Gary Park