Russia 'amazed' by Western mockery of Arctic expedition

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday he was "amazed" by Western mockery of Russia's landmark expedition to the North Pole seabed this week, including a flag-laying on the ocean floor.

"I read messages about the statements that my Canadian colleague made. They truly amazed me," Lavrov was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying during a visit to Manila.

Lavrov's Canadian counterpart poured scorn on the expedition, in which a Russian mini-submarine reached the bottom of the Arctic Ocean as part of an initiative to advance Russia's territorial claims over the resource-rich seabed.

"Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory,'" Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told broadcaster CTV on Thursday.

Washington was equally dismissive.

"I'm not sure of whether they've put a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bed sheet on the ocean floor," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. "Either way, it doesn't have any legal standing or effect on this claim."

Lavrov responded indignantly, saying, "We're not throwing flags around. We know what we can prove."

Russian newspapers on Friday lauded the expedition, calling it a first step in what daily Vremya Novostei referred to as "the battle for Arctic oil".

Government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta went further, saying the division of the Arctic "is the start of a new redistribution of the world."

The Vedomosti business daily focused on the reaction of the other Arctic nations, reporting that both Denmark and the United States were planning expeditions to the North Pole to back up their own Arctic claims.

The six explorers reached the seabed in a pair of mini-submarines at a depth of 4,261 meters (13,980 feet).

The expedition aimed to establish that a section of seabed passing through the North Pole, known as the Lomonosov Ridge, is in fact an extension of Russia's land mass, bolstering Moscow's claims to the mineral riches below. - AFP/ac

[link to iraqwar.mirror-world.ru]