The 62nd parallel
LengYear City, the northern most airport in the ;1tverld, has just been opened. Few tourists will s°oW it took Norway thirty years to overcome ,.n°v.let obstruction. By the 1925 Svalbard (Viet obstruction. Treaty, Norway achieved soverIgntY over this northern archipelago, subject ,_rion-militarisation and the equal economic 1,;gnts of other signatories. Only Russia crigsightedly maintained a presence. While e,eterrninedly obstructing any development ev,,n faintly useful to NATO, Russia has s4.ablished every inch of her own rights. ,,Pitzbergen's new airport has had to concede e;oviet rights to use it for flights internal and nigtehrntsal. Notice must be given of non-routed ollechnically, these rights are also open to the in I er signatories — Britain, France and the US
Particular — but whether the tiny port could :-'13erate under such international jostling is another question.
It is not so much what Russia demanded in tr air that perturbs NATO; it is what, under the saine dispensation, she may demand under taieh!ea. This is the significance of the Moscow on the Barents Sea, which take place next the, The Spitzbergen archipelago commands II northern side of the approaches to the c7rents Sea and White Sea where over 60 per fit of the Soviet Navy is concentrated. The passage between the islands and the North Norwegian coast is the main exit for this fleet: the Russians are therefore interested to limit strictly Norwegian sovereignty over Spitzbergen and its waters. The provisions of the Treaty explicitly speak of territorial waters. No mention is made of the continental shelf. The question at issue is: does Spitzbergen have its own continental shelf, about which there could be argument? The British Foreign Office is keeping its options open.
Although strategy is basic, there is the far from minor detail of oil and the application of Norwegian offshore oil legislation to this vast area of northern shelf. Though, in the past oil has not been found actually on the islands, during 1974 the Norsk Polar Navigasjon has been drilling at Sarstangen; and the Russians have landed equipment at Coles Bay, near Longyear. Clearly the Barent Sea talks are assuming much more than local significance. The ,62nd parallel may be a turning point both in international sea law and in NATO's northern strength.
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