Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Russia has no territorial claim to the Arctic, according to reports reaching here from Copenhagen.
Sergey Lavrov stopped in Denmark on his way to Greenland for a meeting on sovereignty issues in the Arctic.
He said in Copenhagen that Russia's flag planted under the North Pole last year should not be seen as a territorial claim to the oil-rich region.
The move of flag-planting during a Russian scientific Arctic expedition can be compared with American astronauts putting up a U.S. flag on the moon in 1969, he added.
Russia has no claims to the Arctic and will respect international rules in the region, he repeated.
The move during a Russian scientific Arctic expedition heated up the controversy over an area that may contain as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.
Foreign ministers and high officials from Denmark, Russia, the United States, Canada and Norway will hold two-day meeting on sovereignty issues in the Arctic on Greenland Wednesday.
Source:Xinhua
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