Russia plants flag in North Pole seabed as race for riches hots up
Agence France Presse
Thursday, August 2, 2007
by Conor Humphries
Members of Russia’s parliament in a mini-submarine planted their
country’s flag four kilometers (2.5 miles) below the North Pole at the
climax of a mission to back up Russian claims to the region’s mineral
riches.
"The Mir-1 submarine successfully reached the bottom of the Arctic
Ocean… at a depth of 4,261 metres," (13,980 feet) veteran Arctic
explorer and expedition leader Artur Chilingarov told the Vesti
television channel.
A metre-high flag, made of titanium so as not to rust, was deposited on
the seabed, the ITAR-TASS news agency cited an expedition official as
saying.
Chilingarov was joined by fellow parliamentarian Vladimir Gruzdev and
four others, three of whom followed in a second mini-submarine, which
touched the seabed 4,302 metres below the surface, Vesti reported.
Billed as the first to reach the ocean floor under the North Pole, the
expedition aims to establish that a section of seabed passing through
the pole, known as the Lomonosov Ridge, is in fact an extension of
Russia’s landmass.
"We must determine the border. The most northerly border of the Russian
shelf," Chilingarov said in comments broadcast before the dive from the
Akademik Fyodorov research ship leading the expedition.
Speaking during a trip to the Philippines on Thursday, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said he hoped the expedition "would provide
additional scientific evidence for our aspirations," in comments
broadcast on Vesti-24.
The Arctic and Antarctic Institute in Saint Petersburg said official
confirmation of the descent would come only once the mini-submarines are
back on board the Akademik Fyodorov.
The voyage reflects growing international interest in the Arctic partly
due to climate change, which is causing greater melting of the ice and
making the area more accessible for research and economic activity.
The US Geological Survey, a US government agency, said in a report
earlier that some 25 percent of world oil reserves are believed to be
located above the Arctic Circle.
In a speech on a nuclear ice-breaker earlier this year, President
Vladimir Putin urged greater efforts to secure Russia’s "strategic,
economic, scientific and defence interests" in the region.
In 2001 Russia made a submission to a United Nations commission claiming
sub-sea rights stretching to the pole. The current mission is looking
for evidence to back up this claim.
The expedition comes as several countries try to extend their rights
over sections of the Arctic Ocean floor. Both Norway and Denmark are
carrying out surveys to this end.
Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently called for measures to
defend the country’s interests in the Arctic, including by boosting the
number of ice-breakers patrolling its sector.
US politicians, including Senator Richard Lugar, have urged defence of
their country’s Arctic interests to stand up to Russian claims over
large stretches of the seabed.
"Unless the United States ratifies the treaty, Moscow will be able to
press its claims without an American at the table," Lugar said in May,
referring to the Law of the Sea treaty.
Russian media reported a US expedition that set off from Norway on July
1 to study another part of the Arctic seabed, the Gakkel Ridge, was part
of a race between Moscow and Washington for the Arctic’s mineral riches.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which was organising the
voyage, said in an email to AFP that the "expedition is in search of
hydrothermal vents and new biological life."
On Thursday a second Russian expedition was to be launched from the
northern port of Arkhangelsk for a 100-day research mission to Russia’s
Arctic seas, the Arctic and Antarctic Institute said.
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