Denmark names first Arctic envoy

Denmark, which is planning to lay a claim to the North Pole sea bed, on Tuesday named its first permanent envoy to the resource-rich Arctic.

Ambassador Klavs Holm is to secure "a visible place for the Danish community in the intensifying international debate on the Arctic," said Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal.

In a document titled "Strategy for the Arctic" published in August, Denmark said that it was planning to make a formal claim to the North Pole sea bed.

The 58-page report said Denmark and its autonomous Arctic territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands had agreed on a common strategy for the region.

This included producing "documentation for claims to three areas around Greenland, including an area north of Greenland which among other areas covers the North Pole."

Four other countries -- Russia, the United States, Canada and Norway -- are claiming rights for the region.

Under the 2008 Ilulisaat Declaration, the five Arctic coastal states agreed to negotiated settlements to claims in the Arctic region, which along with the Antarctic is one of the last areas on earth where sovereignty has not been fully apportioned.

(c) 2012 AFP