Russia may reconsider its participation in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in the Arctic, said Nikolai Kharitonov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Development of the Far East and the Arctic.
The denunciation of the Convention may be carried out to protect national interests against the background of the actions of 'unfriendly' countries.
The Convention was adopted in 1982. At that time, the USSR did not join the convention, since it defined the concept of a 12-mile zone of territorial waters, whereas the Soviet Union used a sectoral approach to defining borders in the Arctic. Russia ratified the document in 1997.
The Russian military and experts consider continued participation in the convention as a 'time bomb'. It is claimed that NATO ships and aircraft are actively conducting reconnaissance activities in the Russian sector of the Arctic, without crossing that very 12-mile zone, b-port.com reports.
Alex Shishlo for Rough&Polished
