“Our primary focus of these first months was on finding a way forward that would allow the working groups to resume their important work,” Morten Høglund said in an interview posted Thursday on the Arctic Council website.
“As I mentioned in May: without functioning Working Groups, we don’t have a Council. This task was therefore quintessential for restarting the engine and taking a course forward.”
Norway assumed the two-year rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council in May, over a year after Russian-Western cooperation within the forum broke down following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. […]
In March 2022, the seven Western states (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the United States) suspended their involvement in Arctic Council activities in protest of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, citing violations of the forum’s foundational principles, including sovereignty and territorial integrity under international law. […]
Høglund said an August 29 meeting with the states and Indigenous groups decided on guidelines to restart the working groups.
“This includes taking decisions on the way forward for their work, such as proposing new projects that address continued and emerging issues in the Arctic,” he said. “They are also able to resume their collaboration with Observers and external experts that provide vital contributions to the Council’s project work. […]
The Arctic Council Secretariat confirmed to Eye on the Arctic on Friday that all eight Arctic States and six Permanent Participants, including the Russian Federation and the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), were part of the guideline consensus. Läs artikel