ok real sweet grampus if your children result. in israel which is available in cinnamon who told you a beer is still in her children recently. it again this is all to you a quick trip to the headlines at home possibly down. the coast of g.'s the number one issue as nations around the old city circle need to discuss that claims over the region's mineral wells they're trying to assure all that's cutthroat competition doesn't destroy the front ecosystem and it's estimated that around a fifth so the world's on top of the oil reserves and they are the people that ice caps. the u.s. walks out of the united nations general assembly as the rain in prison disputes nine eleven and lashes out of the western domination of president ahmadinejad such

a major that they that these u.s. supporters that tox as a way to control the middle east and help israel were offered a cold on tehran to come clean about its nuclear program. the russian ultra nationalist who escaped from a psychiatric hospital a stud himself and to no one else or sees and is pleading to be allowed to stay in the country but just as a history of violence and it was when he showed up at immigration offices that he's now in custody being investigated by organized crime police and also low for his connection to a band of wives when a group of russian. more headlines a house without both sides dates also his interview shows and all good old talks to the president of iceland ragna grimson to get it his take on the arctic forum currently underway in moscow. for the. we've got. the biggest issues good human. voice face to face with the news maker.

grooms. about the future of the art heads of state. have gathered to discuss the problems. today the president. is here to discuss the arctic the. other problems faced by his country. in the arctic and allowing access to areas wants unreachable. these areas could

contain billions of tons of the oil and gas. claiming the reaches. one 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 the banking system collapsed and has left the country. the president. has criticised the i.m.f. down iceland. thank you very much for being with us here on this program. let's talk about. climate change has has put the economic expiration of the arctic. on the agenda.

at least yes an arctic is one of the regions that. are practically untouched by human activity at least 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. both when the modern times starting moving. our western civilization on the russian ship of the shoshone or with this area we gradually started to discover it but then

when the cold war close to duff mckagan so in fact it is only in the last twenty years or so that we have started to move 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 shoo in where the arctic war what i sometimes call the north and recession 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 fine in the arctic on the north the russians the second is that climate change is happening three times faster in that part of the world as well the melting of the ice in

greenland in the north and recent could have a dramatic impact on the rush of the world and then of course the third the reason is that with the melting off 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 an impact 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 in one moment and the pressure away show if this is. of the ocean on the long resources of paramount importance at the core or a ship among the countries in the region russia my own for the united states

colored on the other nordic countries is of crucial because we have to balance. the arctic with the environmental sustainability the arctic is 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 us canada denmark and norway have all voiced their claims to a piece of the arctic reaches three of the five nations pinned their hopes on the among us of reach russia was the first to submit to the un its claim for the underwood 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 pulls 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 of them to really 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. the you when should you learn who owns what part of the law minister preach the arctic nations i know gives a real evidence to prove their rights to parts of the disputed territory. is the president what was the reaction of ordinary arslan there is and the

politicians in your country when the russians put their national flag under the ice on the north pole was it what was it a big deal i thought to be of be considered a very clever little p.r. exercise. not because in for us especially but because it woke up the russian of the world and i personally can't a welcomed 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 only to the war sob welcomed the opening corps 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 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 nineteen seventies. considerable role in creating the law of the she so we already have an international framework a legal framework where we come shoulder these issues and i think they can all be dealt with within the framework of the law of the sheet the united states needs to ratify the law of the sheep but although eight thousand dropped if i did 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 issues but it has proved to be a very effective and productive so i think now the countries thirty eight countries start are members of the arctic council are ready to strengthen the corporations through the offer to council so far as iceland is kong son already a reason for being in walton 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 greenland 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 iceland is strategically the best place to hold the countries to serve 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 century. another 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 is 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 that following the collapse of the banking sector and the financial crisis the 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 one might europe wanting to apply in the parliament the greek was. the european union currency called corp we are still concerned about the fisheries issue so i think the negotiations will have to deal with those concerns because it's optional to clear other people oh i 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 and i think that crimson the president.

who did actually read out to great so stay with. us here is that so much about that experience and let me mention it is a sneak peak of people out here even freezing assets as the polar caps melt interested exploiting this but regions vast resources pace it could be years before the arctic. team has been to the r. hangal speak. for the first russian fleet was. forty goes to the area which holds top. resources. where the biggest russian salmon can be are processing factories look. where unique species of fauna can be found.

close up on our. welcome back to spotlight on our northern just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is over for a ride 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 in the market of the european union and then secondly we also joined 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 arctic culture policy but in number of

other areas we are. interpol part of the union so it's a kind of a motion picture you ation where the moment of the people was decided 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 social 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. and so fall 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 on the journey of the e.u. in your country who say that if or when i aslan joins the korean union it will no longer have any need of remaining in the nato do you agree do you think that that iceland this prize the it's the choice of either or or you may stay in the nato 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. on warsaw fronting member of nato but we have never had any military forces off or on so we have not been

a part of the nato military corp apart from the fact that the. basin ice on which they closed on the three years ago so for three years now we have not tired 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 asian here the president of iceland surprised the russian ambassador by inviting russia to use the think every base in iceland what did happen what do you have in mind well what made you 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 norwegian 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 and 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 invite people to come and study view a stoppage the university be of many i.t. companies we have a stop is done 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 whose son pilots an aviation people the air controllers and all those to trade out this aviation college the former american base in iceland why do we do that because.

i don't. in the middle of the atlantic so the weather conditions are sometimes very tough and there's a great them shut down mario in the weather so this airport is some ideal place for training of pilots and air controllers on and if brushing wants to establish a partnership with ice something they should respect us all the countries are interested in i know there have been discussions between this nation college and china for example and we will be very happy to do well as far as the new russia rejected you know this proposal t. is likely it was another one i think if it was not the proposal at all those like an idea no it was a report that came out in a which impressed we didn't really have any foundation whatsoever 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 iceland 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 has become the national had to kind of through oh maybe we we all the normal country maybe we are in a push to show that all the countries should cool day before 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 the american military base in iceland because they had to buy the oil on the petrol room from the ice on the companies but they have to import it

from russia so this summer. a military base in iceland or sharon long or a russian oil or russian petroleum a during the cold war which perhaps a lot about how we look at all shows are 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 disagree example but it is possible to be an open free and secure country without basing your foreign policy or you operate show on the premise that all the nations are threatened and with respect to the arctic on the north of new you should we look at the russia primary 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 nari and you can see here oh well this it means that iceland is are fed up by tradition politics how would you how would you characterize the political situation in a country that seems to be very stable well i could talk about that for a long time because as you might know i'm a former professor of political science so i also have a market that mick o'regan and where you have enough time to give a better than this a lot of minutes earlier this year you'd like to share you referred to or was municipal election it was an election and the comp

a total reykjavík but there were also local elections as well and the. paradoxical result although local elections where in some towns including reykjavik new parties and new 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 polities still maintaining a strong hold but i think it is optional to clear the banking crisis the financial crisis the economic difficulties have rooted our road normal politics in a way. this new party has won the evidence i also remind you. the government that was in office whether the banks collapse of resigned a few months later we had to call the parliamentary elections there were protests and demonstrations in the streets

a lifelong 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 protest always comes through though the democratic manuals so i don't think out democratic system is in any way any way being threatened thank you thank you very much for being with us on us through it it will be with you thank you and just a reminder that my guest on the show today was all of this and the president all priced and this is for now from all of us here spotlight moved back with more friends than comments on what's going on in and outside russia and so then they are right and take.

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