Source: The Telegraph
23 Sep 2010 - Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, called for calm in the battle for the Arctic's vast untapped energy resources, accusing unnamed forces of trying to stir up trouble.
Arguing that the region should be "a zone for peace," Mr Putin conceded that Russia's territorial claim for a vast swath of the Arctic was hotly contested and that different countries were vying to push their own geopolitical and economic interests.
However, he said the only way to deal with rival territorial claims was through negotiation in compliance with international law. He said doomsday scenarios of an armed struggle for the Arctic's resources were wide of the mark.
"A well-proven truth has long been apparent: it is hard to survive in the Arctic alone," he told a conference in Moscow. "Nature itself forces people, ethnic groups and even entire governments to help one another."
Mr Putin warned though that unnamed forces were trying to stir up trouble with "futuristic predictions about a looming battle for the Arctic", adding: "Most frightening scenarios of this kind are unfounded and have been calculated to get governments in the area to argue and clash with each other and then try to profit from it."
Analysts said Mr Putin was trying to defuse simmering tensions over who gets to exploit the Arctic's rich mineral wealth in future. Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway are all locked in a race to grab a slice of the northern wilderness after US researchers predicted that global warming might leave the area ice-free, and therefore more easily navigable and explored, as early as 2030. Experts say the region potentially contains one fifth of the world's oil and gas reserves and that the swath of Arctic territory claimed by Russia could be home to oil supplies double the size of Saudi Arabia's proven reserves.
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