MOSCOW, May 11. /TASS/. The future of the Arctic Council will depend on whether the participating countries will be able to jointly find ways of continuing a civilized dialogue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

"Further effective work and the future of the Arctic Council as a whole will depend on whether we can jointly find opportunities for continuing a civilized dialogue to preserve the Arctic as a territory of peace, stability and constructive cooperation," Lavrov said in a video address to the participants in the 13th session of the Arctic Council, uploaded to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website on Thursday.

He recalled that the Council's full-scale work had been disrupted by the West's position, which "froze" the Council's activities under the far-fetched pretext of the situation in Ukraine.

"We consider this step by our Western colleagues as politicized and counterproductive. It erodes collective approaches to responsible administration of the Arctic," Lavrov stressed.

He pointed out that Moscow attached priority attention to the Arctic region.

"The importance of the Arctic for our country's strategic interests was also confirmed in the updated Foreign Policy Concept, approved by [Russian President] Vladimir Putin at the end of March," Lavrov said. "As the chair of the Arctic Council in 2021-2023, our country has always proceeded from the common interests of ensuring the sustainable and safe development of the entire Arctic region and the well-being of its population, including the indigenous peoples of the North," Lavrov concluded.