Russia Explorers Snub Critics in North Pole Row
Date: 08-Aug-07
Country: RUSSIA
Author: Dmitry Solovyov
Russia wants to extend right up to the North Pole the territory it controls in the Arctic, believed to hold vast resources of oil and natural gas that are expected to become more accessible as climate change melts the ice cap.
A mechanical arm of a submersible dropped a rust-proof Russian flag on the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 metres (13,980 feet) last week, staking a symbolic claim for the energy riches of the Arctic.
"The Arctic always was Russian, and it will remain Russian," expedition leader Artur Chilingarov defiantly told reporters after flying into Moscow's Vnukovo airport where well-wishers brandished bottles of champagne and Russian flags.
"We are happy that we placed a Russian flag on the ocean bed, where not a single person has ever been, and I don't give a damn what some foreign individuals think about that," he said.
Russia's move to place a flag on the seabed shows Moscow has joined a scramble with other Arctic states to gain access to the region's energy riches, Russian media says.
But the move has sparked criticism abroad.
Canadian Foreign Minister Peter Mackay said Russia was behaving like a 15th century explorer: "You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory'," he said.
US Department of State deputy spokesman Tom Casey said: "A metal flag, a rubber flag or a bed sheet on the ocean floor ... doesn't have any legal standing or effect on this claim."
President Vladimir Putin cautiously told the returning expedition members that their achievement should provide the groundwork for Russia's official position on who actually owns the Arctic Ocean seabed.
"This, of course, must be discussed with our colleagues and be proven in international bodies," Russian media him as saying.
ARCTIC FOR THE KREMLIN?
The red carpet was rolled out for the explorers in Moscow in a lavish ceremony complete with a military brass band and the traditional bread-and-salt greeting.
Chilingarov was given a large furry toy polar bear -- the master of the North Pole and the emblem of the pro-Putin United Russia.
As he spoke to journalists, Chilingarov, a 67-year-old parliamentary deputy and a senior United Russia member, unfolded a party flag featuring stamps of the Arctic expedition.
"Russia always expanded its territory by northern lands," he said, recalling the expedition of Soviet Arctic researcher Ivan Papanin on a drifting ice-floe in 1937-38.
"Seventy years ago, they would say, 'Bolsheviks have conquered the Arctic'," he said. "Now our crew is United Russia," he said, adding with a flourish: "The Russian flag is the point of the North Pole of the Earth. Full stop."
"If someone doesn't like it, let them dive as deep as 4,300 metres and try and leave something down there."
A group of youths from the pro-Kremlin Young Guard movement, chanted: "Who has shown the planet what is what? It's our Arctic explorer Chilingarov! The Russian people are in the Arctic now!"
