MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Russia has prioritized cooperation in the Arctic and, unlike some other countries, has not set any goal of seeking confrontation in the region, a senior Russian diplomat said on Tuesday.
"The updated concept [of Russia’s foreign policy] primarily reflects today’s foreign policy trends that we are witnessing in the Arctic region and globally. <…> Unlike the strategic documents of other Arctic and non-Arctic countries, ours is not aimed at pursuing confrontation with or deterrence of other nations in the Arctic," Nikolay Korchunov, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-At-Large and Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials of the Arctic Council, said on the sidelines of a discussion club.
According to the diplomat, the Russian policy document mostly targets "cooperation, sustainable development of the Arctic region and structural interaction for sustainable development of the population and local ethnicities."
Certain Arctic countries have sought to broaden confrontation into a multilateral conflict that also affects the work of the Arctic Council, Korchunov lamented. He warned that such a shift toward confrontation, which was "not Russia’s choice," would only serve to weaken multilateral institutions and venues for cooperation in the Arctic, lead to the fragmentation of cooperative multilateral efforts, and disrupt integrated approaches to resolving problems across the region, while fostering an atmosphere of distrust.