OSLO (Reuters) – Norway on Thursday took over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council from Russia despite a freeze in cooperation between the Western Arctic states and Moscow on the regional polar body due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Norway offered to organise a meeting of the Arctic Council in 2025, the statement said, a significant move because all members participate in meetings, meaning that Russia would also be invited.
“Acknowledging the conclusion of the Russian Federation’s second chairmanship … and accepting Norway’s offer to chair the Council in 2023-2025, and its offer to host the fourteenth meeting in 2025,” the members of the council said in the statement, datelined from Salekhard, Siberia.
The Arctic Council was created in 1996 to discuss issues affecting the polar region, ranging from pollution to local economic development to search-and-rescue missions.
It comprises the eight Arctic states of Russia, the United States, Canada, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, editing by Terje Solsvik)
