Ottawa – Canada and Denmark called a truce Monday in a dispute over Hans Island, but neither is renouncing its claim to the wind-swept patch of Arctic rock.
Canada’s Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew, who met with his Danish counterpart during a U.N. summit in New York, said they agreed the two NATO allies would keep each other informed about any activities around the tiny island.
Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said, “We will show restraint in order to avoid unnecessary incidents and escalation.”
Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham rankled Danish officials by making an unannounced visit to Hans Island in July, touching off a new diplomatic dust-up. In a similar vein, Canada formally protested the planting of Danish flags on the outcrop in 1984, 1988 and 2004.
The uninhabited island, the size of several city blocks, sits in the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait, between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Denmark’s Greenland.
Canada insists the quarrel is not about the surrounding waters, noting the boundaries of the continental shelf between Ellesmere and Greenland were agreed on in 1973.
There has been widespread speculation, however, that the two governments perhaps have their eyes on future claims over northern fishing grounds or access to the Northwest Passage, particularly should any global warming make the route more viable.
Despite the agreement on calming the debate, neither side budged on ownership of the island.
“It is Canadian,” Pettigrew declared.
Moeller responded: “At this point in time, we do not see eye-to-eye on the question of sovereignty.”
