Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin justified...
"will discuss the existing disputes in a calm and neighborly manner...will listen to each other rather than exchange threats on non-existing issues."Under international law, each of the five Arctic Circle countries has a 322-kilometer (200-mile) exclusive economic zone in the Arctic Ocean.
However, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, if a country can show its continental shelf extends beyond the 200-mile limit, it can claim rights to more of the ocean floor.
Russia has undertaken two Arctic expeditions - to the Mendeleyev underwater chain in 2005 and to the Lomonosov Ridge in the summer of 2007 - to support its territorial claims in the region.
Russia first claimed the territory in 2001, but the United Nations demanded more evidence.
Russia has said it will invest some 1.5 billion rubles ($49.7 million) in defining the extent of its continental shelf in the Arctic in 2010 in order to prove its right to more
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