The Russian Embassy in Oslo sent a note from the Arctic Ogul Foundation to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry demanding the release of the movement of goods from the Russian Svalbard archipelago.
Consul General of Russia in Svalbard Sergey Goshin said in an interview with Russia 24 TV channel: “We raised this issue (delivery of goods to Russian settlements in Svalbard) before the governor of Svalbard at a meeting on May 18. On May 25, the leadership of the Arctic Ogul Appeal Foundation wrote to the governor of Svalbard with a request to grant an exemption from the ban on the transit of Russian land cargoes specifically to Barentsburg and the village of Pirameda on Svalbard. The Russian Embassy attached this letter to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with its own note containing the request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide it.
Earlier, Gushin said that now there are two Russian containers on the border, of which 7 tons are food, and the rest are industrial goods needed by Russian settlements on Svalbard for ships and cars.
Goshin added that the issue is now under consideration at the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, and the Russian side hopes to consider it positively “for humanitarian purposes, precisely to ensure the stabilization of the situation in Russian settlements.”
Svalbard is a vast polar archipelago located in the Arctic Ocean, far north of Norway. The administrative center is the city of Longyearbyen. The archipelago and its surrounding coastal waters are considered a demilitarized zone.
By Arctic standards, economic activity in the archipelago, in addition to Norway, according to the special status of the archipelago, is carried out only by Russia, which has populated areas on the island west of Svalbard – Barentsburg, Pyramiden and Grumman.
Source: RIA Novosti