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Sunday 05.02.2012

Finland, Sweden, Iceland left out

Denmark stands by its decision to invite only five of the eight Arctic nations to an international meeting next week in Ilulissat, Greenland.

Denmark is standing by its decision to invite only five of the eight Arctic nations to an international meeting next week in Greenland, reports CBC News.



Canada will be among the five Arctic nations sending foreign affairs ministers to the Arctic Ocean Conference in Ilulissat, Greenland, from May 27 to 29.

In addition to Canada, Denmark has invited the United States, Norway and Russia to Ilulissat, where they will discuss each other's claims to the Arctic Ocean seabed, as well as ways of collaborating in emergencies such as oil spills.

But Iceland, Sweden and Finland should also have been invited, said Rob Huebert, associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

Furthermore, that meeting should have been organized by the Arctic Council — an intergovernmental organization that includes Finland, Sweden and the five countries attending the Ilulisat meeting — rather than being held independently of the council, Huebert said.

"This should have been seen as a way of invigorating the Arctic Council, and the Arctic Council should have been the organization that was given the mandate to deal with it," Huebert told CBC News.

Thomas Winkler, the head of the Danish government's International Law Department in Copenhagen, told CBC News that the Arctic Council will be kept informed about the Ilulissat meeting.

"This meeting in Ilulissat is not a competition to the Arctic Council," Winkler said. "The issues that we're going to discuss will be issues that is the responsibility of the five coastal states of the Arctic Ocean."