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Russia says Arctic marking does not imply territorial claim

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Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that new steps to define the country's southern Arctic boundary have nothing to do with territorial claims, and dismissed concerns voiced by foreign states.
MOSCOW, September 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that new steps to define the country's southern Arctic boundary have nothing to do with territorial claims, and dismissed concerns voiced by foreign states.

Last Friday Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his country was taking steps, including military measures, to strengthen its presence in the Arctic due to Russia's disregard for international agreements. The previous day, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had called for a new Arctic frontier law.

Some Western media outlets had also linked the law to Russia's claim to a large part of the Arctic believed to be rich in oil and gas.

The Foreign Ministry said: "We would like to hope that this is, at best, the result of inattentive reading of the materials published by the Russian Security Council."

"What was being discussed by the Security Council was a new federal law that would clearly define the subjects [regions] of the Russian Federation that form the country's Arctic zone, which will benefit from social-economic development measures."

"This law has nothing to do with clarifying the external borders of the Russian Federation's continental shelf, on which issue a [Russian] submission has been discussed by the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf since 2001."

At the Russian Security Council session, President Medvedev had urged for a law establishing the southern Arctic boundaries, saying the country's competitiveness on global markets depended on Arctic resources, and that the region was central to the national energy security.

"According to estimates by experts, the Arctic shelf may have about one quarter of the world's shelf hydrocarbon reserves, and the use of these reserves is a guarantee of Russia's overall energy security," Medvedev said.

Russia has undertaken two Arctic expeditions - to the Mendeleyev underwater chain in 2005 and to the Lomonosov ridge last summer - to back national claims to the region.

Russia earlier said it would submit documentary evidence to the UN of the external boundaries of the Russian Federation's territorial shelf in 2009.

Under international law, the five Arctic Circle countries - the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia - each currently have a 322-kilometer (200-mile) economic zone in the Arctic Ocean.

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