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Russian deputies urged to denounce Arctic treaty with Norway

Russia's top lawmaker on Tuesday said parliamentary deputies should consider denouncing a landmark Arctic border treaty with Norway as tensions rage between the two countries.

Pictured is a trawler in the Barents Sea.
Russia has said that parliamentary deputies should look at denouncing a treaty with Norway. File photo: The Norwegian Coast Guard boards this unregistered trawler "Joana" fishing illegally in the Barents Sea. Photo by Norwegian Coast Guard / Scanpix / AFP

The announcement comes with Moscow accusing Oslo of blocking access to the Svalbard archipelago and ties between the Kremlin and European countries unravelling over Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine.

In 2010, Russia and Norway signed a treaty on maritime delimitation and cooperation in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean, putting to rest a
40-year-old row.

On Tuesday, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, tasked lawmakers with considering “the issue of denunciation of the agreement with Norway on cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean,” the State Duma said.

Volodin backed Communist lawmaker Mikhail Matveyev said that in 2010 Russia “had ceded 175,000 square kilometres of the Barents Sea to Norway”.

Today, Norway is preventing the delivery of food and cargo to Spitsbergen,” the State Duma said in a statement, citing Matveyev.

READ ALSO: Norway says it hasn’t breached treaty by blocking Russian cargo to Svalbard

Last week Russia’s foreign ministry summoned Norway’s charge d’affaires, accusing Oslo of blocking access to the Svalbard archipelago and threatening retaliation.

Norway has sovereignty over Svalbard but allows citizens of more than 40 countries to exploit the islands’ potentially vast resources on an equal footing.

Moscow has long wanted a bigger say in the archipelago and insists on calling it Spitsbergen rather than the Norwegian Svalbard.

After President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February, the West has hit Russia with several rounds of unprecedented sanctions.

Last week Norway announced nearly a billion euros of aid to Ukraine.

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MILITARY

Norway to hit ‘two percent’ NATO target ahead of schedule

Norway, whose neighbour Russia is now "more dangerous and more unpredictable", will reach NATO's two-percent spending target this year, two years earlier than expected, the prime minister said on Thursday.

Norway to hit 'two percent' NATO target ahead of schedule

The 2024 defence budget, initially expected to be around 8.0 billion euros ($8.75 billion), will be revised upwards in the spring budget bill, Jonas Gahr Støre said after meeting opposition leaders.

The Labour prime minister did not provide any detailed figures but said his country would this year reach the target set for NATO members, under which they are expected to dedicate at least two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to military spending.

“Russia has no interest in a military conflict with a NATO member,” Store said. “But we will likely have to cope for a long time with a more dangerous and more unpredictable neighbour, Russia.”

The Scandinavian country was a founding member of NATO in 1949 and shares a 198-kilometre (123-mile) border with Russia in the Far North.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a backdrop, Norway’s minority government will also present a white paper on April 5th outlining its defence plans for 2025-2028.

“Norway poses a threat to no-one,” Støre stressed. “It’s not a plan (to provoke) a conflict, it’s a plan to avoid conflicts.”

NATO is currently holding Nordic Response exercises in northern Europe, involving around 20,000 soldiers.

They include Swedish troops taking part for the first time since Sweden formally joining the transatlantic military alliance last week.

On Wednesday, another Scandinavian country, Denmark, said it would raise its defence spending by $5.9 billion over five years to boost its military capacity, pushing it past NATO’s spending target from this year.

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