straight from the heart of moscow directly to you this is our future headlines now with potentially vast reserves of oil and gas at stake moscow is hosting an international forum on the future of the arctic russia the u.s. norway and. mineral wealth scientists are also warning of ecological damage investing sponsible for protecting the fragile ecosystem. president dmitri medvedev orders a ban on the supply of russian advanced air defense systems to iran. the three hundred missile deal because it fell within the latest u.n.

sanctions on tehran washington strongly welcomed good move saying it demonstrates level of mutual cooperation on strategic interests and the global security. cooperation is visible at the u.n. summit in new york nato and russia say they've made real progress towards greater unity the two sides agreed to work together for better security and iran's nuclear program also came under scrutiny with u.n. security council members calling for tehran to return to the negotiating table. more headlines in half an hour but first interview show spotlight talks to the president of iceland to all of our raw. to get his take on the arctic forum currently underway in moscow.

it's. grimm's. about the future of the art heads of state. from the northern countries have gathered to discuss the problems. on the show today the president. is here to discuss the arctic the. to join the european union and the other problems faced by his country. the warming climate is melting ice in the arctic and allowing access to areas wants unreachable by vessels these areas could contain billions of tons of oil and gas only countries. claiming the reaches. of them the president.

has come to russia to take part in the forum. he's known as an advocate against climate change also iceland was badly hit by the economic crisis two years ago when the banking system collapsed and has left the country debts the president. has criticised the i.m.f. down iceland. thank you very much for being with us here on this program well first of all let's talk about. climate change has has put the economic expiration of the arctic. on the agenda. at least. arctic is one of the. that's practically untouched by human activity at least a lot of places there so what would you call the priority

saving the riches of the arctic or learning how to how to explore and how to how to utilize the riches of the region. there are many reasons why we should be concerned about the arctic but it's also interesting to note that for. thousands of years have been people living indigenous people living all over the arctic. but when the modern times start to moving. our western civilization on the russian ship or the show or with this area we gradually started to discover it but then when the cold war close to duff akkad so in fact it is only in the last twenty years or so that we have started to do the arctic. almost in

a completely new way and at the same time climate change speeded up so now we have a shift to a shoe and where the article war what i sometimes call the north and reasons regions house become one of the most important and crucial areas. all for all of us and the number of reasons for it one day so she mentioned the vast amount of the un top to energy russia was of the world are to be find home in the arctic on the north the regions the second days of climate change is happening three times faster in that part of the world as well the melting of the ice in greenland and in the north of reasons could have a dramatic impact on the rest of the world and then of course the third reason is that with the melting of the ice we could almost say unfortunately there will be

new shipping routes opening up which will link asia to europe and america in a way that it will shorten the distance by almost a half and have a name park on the world trade almost like the show which come up one hundred years ago and in all of this you are absolutely correct the concerns for the environment and the pressure weigh ssion off this. of the ocean on the long resources is of paramount importance and the corporation among the countries in the region russia my own for. all the nordic countries is absolutely crucial because we have to balance how we you wish the arctic with the environmental sustainability the arctic is a believed to contain a quarter of the world and discovered oil and gas five nations are claiming their

right to a share of the riches spotlight even the dimmy there are reports. global warming is heating up the debate over who owns which part of the arctic the melting ice allows exploration and development of previously inaccessible oil and gas in the area russia the u.s. canada denmark and norway have all voice their claims to a piece of the arctic reaches three of the five nations pin their hopes on new ominous of reach russia was the first to submit to the un its claim to the underworld to mountain range in two thousand and one the country argued the reach was an extension of the russian continental shelf the u. when asked for more evidence to collected russian scientists went forty three hundred meters under the arctic ice in two thousand and seven the team had it by

our two children girls give it some pose of the shelf and celebrated the first expedition of its kind by planting a russian flag on the seabed at the north pole the west labelled a symbolic gesture as political issues in russia than pirelli stick conditions russia has also invoked on a diplomatic solution it's signed an agreement with norway bringing to an end the footie you dispute over a potential it and the jury each area in the barents sea the russian and canadian foreign ministers have agreed. when should drilling who owns what part of the filament cost of reach the arctic nations i know get there in evidence to prove their rights to parts of the disputed territory. this is president what was the reaction of ordinary iceland there is and the politicians in your country when the russians put their national flag under the ice on the north pole was it wasn't a big deal what i thought to be of be considered

a very clever little p.r. exercise. not because in for us especially but because it walcot the rust of the world and i personally can't to welcome to it because i had been trying for ten years to speak about the arctic issues to people in europe in the united states and elsewhere and there was very little interest but suddenly when the russians put the flock of the bottom of the arctic ocean everybody woke up but i realized times how to ride so i think when we look back to warsaw welcomed opening court to the rest of the world but now we need to come together and and create a successful framework for corporation mr president. does iceland claim well like russia or like canada there's a claim its share of the arctic shelf and what do you think in general is the best way to tackle this problem in order to avoid competition and conflict one

fortunately we have the law of the sea. which took a long time to create my country through our come paid for the extension of the economic zones first in the fifty's and then in the ninety's some of these. considerable role in creating the law of the she so we already have an international framework a legal framework well we come shoulder these issues and i think they can all be dealt with within the framework of the more the sheet the united states needs to ratify the law of the sheep but although eight thousand ratified it already hopes erving it so i don't think that is the problem. what we need to do is to strengthen the corporation among the arctic countries so we have to build the arctic council which so far has been successful but rather limited to what being

a stronger body so you will when you say limited you mean the more countries have to go i don't know no more more issues. because when it was a stop list it was only agreed that it will deal with limited to issues but it has proved to be a very effective and productive so i think now the countries the eight countries that are members of the arctic council are ready to strengthen the corporations through the offer to counsel so far as i said on this kong sun already a reason for being involved in these are perhaps three or four. when we look at where our. and our economic shown to reach is. into the arctic area so from a geographical point of view we are a part of this region secondly we are the closest neighbor to pretty long and

greenland is the largest ice in the arctic and the corporation between iceland and greenland. very important to link in this whole exercise but thirdly with respect to the new shipping routes the with the melting of the ice when the container ships or the oil tanker shore the commercial ships come from china or ratio along the russian coasts into the atlantic iceland is in the middle so i love this strategically best place to wall the countries to show of also hope or also showing station or war base for the potentially huge commercial traffic that will link to europe and america in this new show. in the subject i want to talk about is the european union iceland has stayed away

from joining the e.u. for a pretty long time now what in your opinion made iceland change their point of view on the subject well first of all there is already. still a debate in my country whether we should go in or not but i think the main reason was following the collapse of the banking sector and the financial crisis two years ago many people thought that maybe we had to and an era where smaller countries that wanted to be globally octave couldn't really maintain their own currency so probably the main reason why we moved from a sheet curation off minority. for a. minority for applying to what. wanting to apply in the parliament the greek was. the european union

a currency called corp we are still called sons about the fisheries issue so i think the negotiations will have to deal with those con songs because it's optional to clear up the people don't want to lose control over the ocean resources or all the natural resources so in this case the outcome of the negotiations will be crucial when many countries have joined the european union in the past. the negotiations were just a formality in our case i think they will determine whether iceland will be a member or not says in that crimson the president. will be back right up to a great so stay with. us

. when something really crucial when you want to get down to brass tacks. special coverage. on the least news from the. scientific discussion expert opinions on the person you choose of the. pool or interests. question more. every month we give you the future you understand. and bring the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world. knowledge on our jeep.

welcome back to spotlight on our northern just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is all of what i write in the grimms and the president of iceland how we started talking about the possible and membership of your country in the years which brings not only benefits but also new problems new challenges you mentioned one of them which is which is fishing which is crucial for for your country and the other one another crucial issue maybe maybe immigration is the society in your country ready to face these new challenges no i don't think the immigration will be an issue because. there was no way i was now for nearly twenty years been a member of the european economic area which means that we are a member of the indian market of the european union and then secondly we also join the agreement to gather with norway so we have now for almost twenty years lived

with the shit you ation that there is a free movement of people between iceland and the european union so i don't think there will be any change with respect to the moment of the people because part of the actually although we say iceland this outside the european union because of the european economic eery agreement between iceland on norway and the european union and because we are part of the schengen we are in many respects inside the european union but we are not part of the monetary policy we are not part of the political corp we are not part of the fisheries on the culture policy but in number of other areas we are interpol part of the union so it's a kind of almost you asian where the moment of the people mostly. cited almost twenty years ago but the fact of the month. in iceland we have a relatively high proportion of people born elsewhere by european standards we have

about six seven eight percent of the those who live in iceland were born elsewhere they come from many different countries they come from poland the nordic countries they come from. they come from the from the balkan countries and they live in the villages and towns or more were done so follow the homefront really in my country been any tension or conflicts us you have seen for example in denmark or in sweden as you refer to it so we have so far so good to have a harmonious relationship between those who have recently arrived in iceland from all the countries and those who live there for a long time there is a number of. optimists the advocates of joining the e.u. in your country who say that if or when i aslan joins the european union it will no longer have any need of remaining in the nato do you agree do

you think that that iceland this prize will it's the choice of either or or you may stay in the way to being a member of the european union always a all due respect i mean i've never heard this argument in my own country so i don't think this is a strong opinion there is no linkage in the debate tonight on between the european union discussion and the nato discussion. was of fronting member off nato but we have never had any military forces off or own so we have not been a part of the nato military corp apart from the fact that the americans had a base in ice on which they closed on the three years ago so for three years now. we have not had to any military activity in my country so i don't think there is side the war situation with respect to nato or the european union well back in two

thousand and eight i have the night from asia here the president of iceland has surprised the russian ambassador by inviting russia to use the careful arctic air base in iceland what did happen what do you have in mind well what made you to make such as a political is this this is not a true story really although the us at the time of extortion is a vertical friend of mine i actually met him last night when i came to moscow but this was a story that came out in the reach of the newspapers and didn't really have any basis. what was perhaps these the the small part of this story was as i mentioned before for over half a century the american military base in iceland that the bush administration decided to close the base down so now we have out the former base

area very interesting location which we have called on a flunked accent elections where we had wide people to come on study be it was stop as the university b.-o. stop list many id companies we have to stop just on aviation college the trains pilots on air traffic controllers and all those and we have invited all the nations not just russia but all those pilots an aviation people air controllers and others to trade out this aviation college of the former american base in iceland and why do we do that because. i saw this in the middle of the atlantic so the weather conditions are sometimes very tough and there's a great and sudden. in the weather so this airport is an ideal place for training of pilots and air controllers on and if brush wants to waste

opposition of partnership with i something they should respect us other countries are interested in i know there have been discussions between this nation college and china for example and we would be very happy to do well as far as the new russian rejected the this proposal it seems like it was in the other one i think if it was not the proposal at all those like an idea that oh it was a report that came out didn't know which impressed we didn't really have any foundation watch oil but anyway this report and the way you talk about it right now shows that iceland doesn't consider russia to be any threat well i stand there doesn't consider nato whoever also to be a threat do you really see any threat for you countries in europe in the world no not really not well that makes you pretty different from many other countries in the one who's worth maybe is it because the national had to kind of through well maybe we we all the normal country maybe we are in

a push to show that all the countries should cool dame for we have for a long time even during the cold war heart of very productive relationship with russia for example in the fifty's. when the cold war already started russia became a crucial trading partner over icelandic fish products and we imported for decades all years of petroleum from russia and in fact you might think it's funny when you look back on it to the american military base in iceland because they had to buy the oil on the patrol room from the ice on the companies but they have to import it from russia so this american military base in iceland or sharon long the russian oil or russian petroleum a during the cold war. which perhaps tells you a lot about how we look at ourselves and now as i pointed out to you before we have forced three years been

a country without any military forces whatsoever so i think i still do take samples but it is possible to be open free and secure a country with old basing your foreign policy or you operate shown on the premise that all the nations are threat and with respect to the arctic on the north of new you should we look at the russia prime already partner in the a successful development off the arctic on the north the regions on the one of the reason why i'm participating in this conference here in mosco because we have now for a number of years been advocating that russia on iceland on the all the countries should create a very broad construct if i'm positive corporation mr president you mentioned the crisis and the crisis really really hit your country pretty strongly the economy which is still suffering still overcoming the results well i recently as there was

a surprising victory of the best party recently founded by comedian john no hard and you can say yeah oh well this it means that iceland is are fed up by tradition and politics how would you how would you characterize the political situation in the country that seems to be very stable well i could talk about that for a long time because as you might know i was a former professor of political science so i also have an academic research where you have enough time to give a better day this is better than it really of the shell you'd like to share you referred to or was municipal election it was an election in the comp a total reykjavík but there were also local elections as well and the paradoxical result of those local elections in some towns including reykjavik new party. content that you're caught to great success and could be interpreted. like age old type of politics in all the parts of the country the old politics still

maintain a strong hold but i think it is optional he clear the banking crisis the financial crisis the economic difficulties have. rooted our road normal politics in a way that this new party is want evidence i also remind . the government that was in office when the banks collapse of resigned a few months later we had to call a parliamentary elections there were protests and demonstrations in the streets of iceland which is pretty unusual so the appearance of this political party is not the only side of the new political she threw a shoe in within our democratic system but the important thing is that the protests always comes through though the democratic manuals so i don't thing out democratic

system is in any way any way being threatened thank you thank you very much for being with us i know you're just thrilling as it will be with you thank you and just a reminder that my guest on the show today was all of. these and the president. and this is from all of us here spotlight will be back with more friends than comments on what's going on in and outside russia and so then they are writing and taking.

in moscow all she's available in marriage grand hotel ritz carlton royal marital ruin renaissance cookie on one marriage confluence of holiday encirclement to. holiday in the social ski patrol the radio national in the region country club suborning shirton finest piece of the first kind of show can pinsky see.