MURMANSK, June 09. /ITAR-TASS/. Specialists and insurance representatives of international environmental campaigners Greenpeace cannot gain access to the north Russian port of Murmansk, where their Arctic Sunrise ship has been held since the September 2013 storming of a Russian Arctic oil installation, Maria Favorskaya, a Greenpeace spokeswoman in Moscow, told ITAR-TASS on Monday.

“The international crew that should fix the vessel and surveyors are currently in The Netherlands. They are ready to leave and are waiting only for access to the port,” Favorskaya said, adding that the organisation knew nothing about reasons for delay or its possible duration.

Russia’s Investigative Committee annulled the arrest of the protest ship on June 6, since when “Our main priority is to get the ship checked by independent surveyors to assess the level of damage,” the organisation said, adding it was unlikely Arctic Sunrise could leave Russia in coming days.

Russian authorities had not yet returned essential navigation gear removed from the ship in the course of investigations into the Prirazlomnaya platform protest extended by two months until July 24 to examine equipment found on the ship.

Twenty-eight activists and two freelance journalists were arrested by Russian authorities after they attempted to scale Gazprom’s Barents Sea installation.

They were seized by Russian security guards and their vessel was towed to the port of Murmansk. The protesters - nationals of 18 countries and four Russians - were initially taken into custody on charges of piracy, later downgraded to hooliganism.

After two months in a Russian jail, the activists were released on bail. In December last year, Russia formally dropped criminal charges against the crew, released under a Kremlin-backed amnesty. All 26 foreign activists had returned home by the end of last year.