Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma, will ratify a maritime border demarcation treaty with Norway within a month, Russian Foreign Monister, Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.
Last year Russia and Norway signed a deal to delimitate their maritime border in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean after 40 years of negotiations.
Both countries have been disputing the 175,000 square km area since 1970. The absence of defined maritime border often resulted in detentions of fishing vessels in the region.
The agreement has also paved the way for the lifting of a 30-year-long moratorium on oil and gas extraction in the previously disputed zone.
"We were discussing the vital issue for our states [maritime border demarcation pact]...Norway has ratified the pact. Russia has just started the ratification. We are planning to settle it within a month," Lavrov told a meeting with his Norwegian counterpart, Jonas Gahr Store in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
Russia, however, is still in a dispute with Canada over the Lomonosov Ridge in the Arctic Ocean, with both countries trying to persuade a UN commission that it is an extension of its own continental shelf. The sides have agreed that scientific evidence should resolve the dispute.
KALININGRAD, March 7 (RIA Novosti)
