Russia to ask UN to agree to Arctic borders expansion

Moscow, Oct 30 (IANS/EFE) Russia's Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Sergey Donskoy, said Wednesday that his country intends to ask the UN to allow Russia to expand its land borders in the northern Arctic region in 2015.

"The request will be presented to the UN in the spring of next year, as we have plans to expand Russian borders in the Arctic region," Xinhua quoted the minister as saying Wednesday in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.

He said that if the UN approves the request, Russia will be able to add around one million sq. km to its territory.

If the request is approved, he said, Russia will not only expand in the Arctic region, but also may conduct a review to determine Russian development throughout the region, which, as he acknowledged, have important reserves of hydrocarbons.

The minister said that the request will be the first of its kind to be submitted by a country in the Arctic region to the UN.

"I am confident that the region is Russian, our request has been ready for 14 years, but in that time, none of these areas were proven to belong to the Russian mainland," he said.

Donskoy also said that new research has convinced most experts that the territories in question are part and parcel of Russia.

--IANS/EFE

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