Duma speaker instructs Foreign Affairs Committee to review Barents Sea delimitation treaty, thebarentsobserver.com

Speaker of Russia’s Parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, wants a study on possible options of denouncing the 2010 Treaty with Norway concerning maritime delimitation and cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

The issue was brought up during the plenary session of deputies by Communist Party member Mikhail Matveev, government-owned newspaper Rossiskya Gazeta reports.

“Today, we see how Norway prevents sending food and cargo to Svalbard,” Matveed said, pointing to the recent conflict where Russia insists to ship winter supplies from Murmansk to Barentsburg via mainland Norway instead of sailing it directly across the Barents Sea to the Russian settlement on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago.

The Communist Party was in 2010 highly dissatisfied with – and voted against ratification of – the delimitation agreement reached between the two countries prime ministers at the time; Jens Stoltenberg and Dmitry Medvedev. Läs artikel