Right to Arctic after the successful polar expedition : Putin

Moscow, Aug 7 (UNI) Congratulating the Russian team of polar explorers on their successful expedition to the Arctic last week, President Vladimir Putin today said the results of the expedition to the North Pole should be used as a basis for Russia's position on property rights to the Arctic shelf.

''As to the extension of our shelf, this should be discussed with colleagues, this should be proved at international organizations," Mr Putin said at a meeting with Artur Chilingarov, the leader of the expedition.

The team returned to Moscow by a plane from Norway that landed at Vnukovo airport. ''It is necessary that results of your expedition serve as the grounds for Russia's position on these problems," he said.

''The work was very interesting, very weighty, very important for the country, and dangerous," Mr Putin said, adding "This is a great breakthrough for science and the people who took part in it." During the expedition, the research vessel Akademik Fyodorov of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and the nuclear-powered icebreaker Rossiya of the Murmansk shipping company covered nearly 2,500 miles in the ice of the most rigorous and coldest ocean of the globe.

Samples of water, ice and rock were taken in the ocean areas of special interest to science, over the Lomonosov and Gakkel ridges and at the point of the North Pole that Rossiya and Akademik Fyodorov reached on August 1.

On August 2, Mir-1 and Mir-2 which are the deep-water 'mini-submarines' operated for almost nine hours in the ocean's depths in the place where the globe's meridians converge. They dived to the depth of 4,300 m.

Russia's flag of extra-strong metal, a capsule with the message to future generations, the flag of the Third International Polar Year and a commemorative medal were placed on the ocean floor.

Using manipulators, the Mir 'mini-submarines' took samples of rock and water and brought live organisms from the ocean floor.

''For the first time in history, the deep-water Mir craft touched the floor of the most rigorous and coldest ocean of the globe,'' Chilingarov said.

UNI