14 August 2007International Herald Tribune
A Danish minister on Tuesday dismissed moves by Russia and Canada to assert sovereignty over the Arctic, saying territorial claims in the potentially resource-rich region could not be settled by flag-planting and political visits.
The scramble for control of the Arctic intensified two weeks ago when Russia sent two submarines to plant a tiny national flag at the North Pole. Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada spent three days in the Canadian Arctic.
"No matter how many flags you plant or how many prime ministers you send, that doesn't become a valid parameter in the process," Helge Sander, the Danish minister of science, technology and innovation, said.
Denmark sent a team of scientists to the Arctic ice pack Sunday to seek evidence that the Lomonosov Ridge, a 2,000-kilometer, or 1,240-mile, underwater mountain range, is attached to the Danish territory of Greenland.
The Danish expedition, which had been planned for years, might allow the Danes to stake a claim that could stretch all the way to the North Pole, although Canada and Russia also claim the ridge.
The United States and Norway also have claims in the Arctic region, where a U.S. study suggests as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden.
The race for the Arctic is intensifying partly because global warming is shrinking the polar ice, which could someday open up resource development and new shipping lanes.
Denmark, which also plans expeditions in 2009 and 2011, expects to deliver its claim in 2014, Sander said.
A U.S. Coast Guard cutter is headed to the Arctic this week on a mapping mission to determine whether part of this area can be considered U.S. territory, Reuters reported from Washington.
The four-week trip of the cutter Healy starts Friday and aims to map the sea floor on the northern Chukchi Cap, an underwater plateau that extends from Alaska's North Slope 800 kilometers northward.
This is the third such U.S. Arctic mapping cruise - others were in 2003 and 2004 - and is not a response to a Russian mission this month to place a flag at the North Pole seabed, or a newly announced Canadian plan for an Arctic port, U.S. scientists said.
"This cruise was planned for three years and we've had the earlier cruises; this is part of a long and ongoing program, not at all a direct response," said Larry Mayer of the University of New Hampshire, who will be on the voyage.
