Russia
Claims North Pole
By Anne Penketh
03 August, 2007
The
Independent
Russia has taken a giant leap
for the Kremlin by planting its flag on the ocean floor under the North
Pole in a politically charged symbolic gesture to claim the rights to
the sea bed which could be rich in oil and gas.
In a dramatic technical feat
testing international law, the Russians dispatched two mini-submarines
2.5 miles to the ocean floor in what is believed to be the first expedition
of its kind.
Both submersibles, with crews
of three on board, completed their dangerous return to the surface yesterday
after what was described as a "smooth landing".
But the expedition raised
the hackles of Russia's neighbours, who also have their eye on the vast
mineral deposits that could lie under the Arctic area, and who consider
the Russian move as a brazen land grab. "This isn't the 15th century.
You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming
this territory'," said Peter MacKay, Canada's Foreign Minister.
Russia has fired the first
diplomatic shot in a really cold war. The new oil rush has been galvanised
by the accelerated shrinking of the polar ice cap because of global
warming, which has allowed exploration that had been previously unthinkable
because of the extreme conditions.
Russia claims that the Lomonosov
Ridge, an underwater mountain range crossing the polar region, is an
extension of its territory. The UN has rejected Moscow's 2001 claim
to the ocean bed, which it says is part of its continental shelf under
international law but the Russians are due to resubmit their case to
the committee administering the Law of the Sea.
A brains trust of 135 Russian
scientists, led by a 68-year-old personal envoy of President Vladimir
Putin, the explorer Artur Chilingarov, plan to map out part of the 1,240-mile
ridge.
But yesterday's scientific
achievement of dropping a titanium capsule containing the Russian flag
on to the seabed could not conceal the political advantage gained by
Mr Putin. Once again, he has demonstrated to the West Russia's determination
to expand its energy empire.
The news of the mission's
success dominated Russian television yesterday. Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's
spokesman, said the President considered it "very important ...
Being a unique scientific expedition, it is of course supported by the
President."
The Foreign Minister, Sergei
Lavrov, said: "I think this expedition will supply additional scientific
evidence for our aspirations." But he added that the issue of territorial
claim to the polar region "will be resolved in strict compliance
with international law". If recognised, the claim would give Russia
control of nearly half of the Arctic's near-half million square mile
sea bed.
But four other countries
- the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark - also have claims on the ocean
floor which could hold as much oil and gas as Saudi Arabia. According
to the US Geological Survey, the Arctic seabed and subsoil account for
25 per cent of undiscovered oil and gas reserves.
The Russian convoy, consisting
of a research vessel and a nuclear-powered ice-breaker, and the two
submersibles which had been used in the filming of Titanic, set sail
from the northern Russian city of Murmansk last week, catching the world
by surprise. Initial concerns that the expedition could be thwarted
by thick sea ice proved unfounded, although the research vessel, the
Akademik Fyodorov suffered from engine trouble on the journey.
Mr Chilingarov was on board
the Mir-1, the first submersible to go down, and spent eight hours and
40 minutes under water. The last 40 minutes were tense, as the crew
tried to find an opening free of ice. "It was so good down there,"
he said on his triumphant return. "If someone else goes down there
in 100 or 1,000 years, he will see our Russian flag." The Mir-2
had an international crew on board, including the Australian deep-sea
specialist Mike McDowell who previously led tours to the Antarctic.
The co-sponsor of the voyage, the Swedish pharmaceuticals millionaire
Frederik Paulsen, was also on the submersible, according to the Russian
news agency Itar-Tass.
In addition to the engineering
challenge - which has been compared to the first moon landing - the
dark depths of the Arctic waters are so mysterious that the Russian
crew did not know what they would find.
Vladimir Gruzdev, who accompanied
Mr Chilingarov on Mir-1, mused before their dive: "What if we encounter
Atlantis there? Nobody knows what is there. We must use the opportunity
given to us 100 per cent." The operation was straight out of a
Jules Verne story, with expectations that exotic underwater creatures
would appear from the uncharted depths. But in a momentous anti-climax,
the expedition's leader declared: "There is yellowish gravel down
here. No creatures of the deep are visible."
While in the Arctic, until
mid-September, the scientists will continue to study in detail the climate,
geology and biology of the polar region. But the Russians had better
watch their backs: the Danes hope to prove that the Lomonosov Ridge
is an extension of Greenland, which is part of Denmark. Canadian and
Danish scientists are currently on two icebreakers mapping the north
polar sea.
And in a reminder of the
Kremlin's aggressive use of its oil and gas wealth, the state-run Gazprom
this week threatened to cut off gas to Belarus in a re-run of the economic
bullying of Ukraine in 2006 that affected further supplies to Europe.
Belarus owes Russia $460m for gas. Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus's President,
yielded to the demand yesterday, after being promised a little help
by the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. If Russia had carried out
its threat, gas supplies to Germany and Poland would definitely have
been at risk.
© 2007 Independent News
and Media Limited
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