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A POTENTIALLY sharp fishing dispute has flared up between Norway and Russia.
The flashpoint has been the arrest of Russian trawlers for alleged illegal fishing in the seas around Svalbard, the northern Norwegian island once known as Spitzbergen.
Last month a Norwegian fishery protection vessel arrested a Russian trawler for dumping fish overboard which is illegal in Norwegian territorial waters.
The vessel, the Sapphire II was escorted to Tromso where the owners were fined 405,000 Norwegian kroners (about £50,000 sterling).
Russia has reacted angrily to the arrest and, according to the newspaper Kosomolskaya Pravda, the Russian Federal Fisheries Agency said that Russia would not stand idly by if there were further arrests. It warned that Norwegian fish exports to Russia, which are worth over 600 million euros (£520 million) a year, could face the threat of trade sanctions. Russia has also formally protested to Norway over the arrest.
While the two countries stress that the dispute is not a conflict or anything like it, there is some concern at the way the issue has escalated. Both Norway and Russia share the fish rich Barents Sea and there is a great deal of co-operation between the two on fishing related issues. They signed a delimitation treaty for the Barents Sea last year. But the Arctic and the Svalbard region in particular, remains a potential flashpoint when it comes to territorial claims and fishing and mineral rights.
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