Denmark and Greenland have handed the United Nations documents to support their claim to the disputed continental shelf. The governments of both nations said the data concerns the ownership 115,000 square-kilometres and 200 nautical miles which extend southwest off the Greenland coast towards Canada and east towards Iceland.
The submission, which was made to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) on Thursday (June 14), is the latest effort by Denmark and Greenland to claim parts of the seabed that extend towards the North Pole. However, other countries, including Russia, China and Iceland, have also become increasingly interested in the area, which is thought to be rich in natural resources.
“The submission concerns the third of five areas which the Kingdom of Denmark claims,” the document read.
The first claim for an area to the north of the Faroe Islands was launched by the two joined nations in 2009, while a submission for an area to the south of the Finnish archipelago was delivered the year after. The document said that submission for all five areas will be complete by 2014.