MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. Cooperation in the Arctic region should be de-politicised so the outside developments would have no impact on Arctic cooperation, Russian Ambassador at Large Vladimir Barbin, said in an exclusive interview with TASS.
"First, it regards interaction on such pressing issues as environmental interaction and improvement of life standards of the Extreme North residents," said Barbin, who is a senior official at the Arctic Council. "So there cannot be any politics."
"Russia’s policy at the Arctic Council calls for collective approaches so as to seek solutions to existing challenges and to use them jointly in new opportunities arising in the Arctic region. In particular, in economic collaboration," he said.
"It is of great importance for us that peace and security in the Arctic may be promoted only through strengthened cooperation," Barbin said. "The Arctic Council will reflect its adherence to peace and stability of cooperation in the final political declaration."
"Solutions should be sought hand-by-hand," he said.
"And opportunities arising there must be used on the basis of equal cooperation," he said. "Our approach is that neither discrimination nor confrontation among nations can become possible."
"The Arctic Council’s attractiveness for both Russia and other states in the Arctic region can be seen in the fact that ‘clubs’ membership’ divides nobody here and Europeans are not contrasted with North Americans or Russia with the United States," he said.
"We all have our national traits," Barbin said. "Principles of consensus are a guarantee of successful interaction in the Arctic region. They are unique and in these difficult international conditions they help to ensure stability of cooperation and to take mutual interests of one another into consideration.".