ST. PETERSBURG, August 11. /TASS/. Russia is interested in the effective work of the Arctic Council during Norway’s presidency and will continue participating in its activities, along with other nations, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador at Large Nikolay Korchunov told TASS.

"Russia continues participating in the Arctic Council’s work, like other countries," he said. "We are interested in the effective work of this body."

He recalled that Norway, the Council’s current chair, had announced its plans to resume the activity of working groups this fall. "But we see that it is not easy for the Norwegian chairmanship to do this because of the corresponding positions taken by other Arctic countries," the Russian diplomat said.

"We see that non-military risks and challenges are growing and the Arctic Council managed to successfully cope with them - in such areas as emergency situations, for instance, oil spills, biodiversity, managing maritime waste, the use of resource-saving technologies, preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of indigenous peoples. Regrettably, this work has been suspended and we are worried about that. But, on our part, we are doing our best to implement those projects that were advanced by us regardless of the foreign policy environment," Korchunov stressed.

Russia handed over the presidency of the Arctic Council on May 11 during the organization’s 13th session in Salekhard. After the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Western nations suspended cooperation with Russia within this platform.

The Arctic Council is an intergovernmental organization of Arctic states, which is comprised of Russia, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Norway, the United States, Finland, and Sweden. Russia took over a two-year presidency in 2021, when the organization marked its 25th anniversary. During its presidency, Russia held some 90 different events in 24 Russian cities, including in all of its nine Arctic regions.