Russia and Norway have stopped the lengthy dispute over the territories in the Barents Sea and the 175 thousand-square-kilometer basin in the Arctic Ocean.

Agreement on the territories has been ratified by the Russian Duma. Not everyone welcomed the agreement in Russia. The country has allegedly lost about 80 thousand square kilometers of fishing zones, where it would catch up to 300 thousand tons of fish annually.

There came assessments that the Russian fishermen, who are still using environmentally damaging fishing trawlers, may be excluded from the common areas with the Norwegians, which, according to the agreement, went to the Norwegian supervision.

It has developed that Russia has never had any property rights with Norway to the debatable territories. Fishermen of both countries would fish in those waters feeling like their owners, and crossing those waters by another party was considered a violation.

The two countries seem to have divided the waters, but the additional agreements do not forbid the vessels from fishing there.

The agreement on cooperation in the Arctic waters was signed in September of last year, after the occurrence of a few incidents, when the Norwegian fisheries inspectors hunted Russian fishermen fishing outside their areas.

When the debatable area was divided, it became clear that both Russia and Norway had been holding quite large areas there. In the Barents Sea alone, Russia’s share is 860 thousand square kilometers, whereas Norway holds a 510 thousand-square-kilometer territory.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation announced that after the division of debatable territories in the Barents Sea, Russia retained the richest part of the Shelf, storing natural resources, including oil.