The race for ownership of the North Pole is hotting up.
After 12 years and $50 million of research, Denmark has surveyed the 2,000-kilometer-long underwater mountain range that runs north of Siberia and concluded that it is geologically attached to Greenland, the huge autonomous territory that, along with the Faroe Islands, is controlled by Denmark. (Denmark’s broader strategy on the Arctic can be found here. (pdf))
As a result, the kingdom is claiming 895,541 square kilometers (556,463 square miles) of the North Pole—an area about 20 times the size of Denmark. “This is a historical milestone for Denmark… [and now] comes a political process,” the Danish foreign minister, Martin Lidegaard, said. “I expect this to take some time. An answer will come in a few decades.”
In 2008, the five nations with claims to the area—the US, Russia, Norway, Canada and Denmark—all pledged to resolve their differences under the framework…
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