Nordic foreign ministers welcomed a report Monday recommending increased cooperation in defence and foreign policy matters - including in the mineral-rich Arctic, according to dpa. "We face new threats," former Norwegian foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg said at a news conference in Oslo attended by the five foreign ministers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Stoltenberg, commissioned last year to write the 36-page report, specified the melting Arctic ice cap and the booming cost of defence technology as areas where closer regional cooperation was needed. The affects of the predicted melting of the Arctic polar cap due to climate change is likely to result in new shipping routes and thus open up new areas for exploration for oil, gas and other minerals. More shipping could also increase the risk for accidents, generating the need for better search-and-rescue capabilities, the report said. Stoltenberg underlined that the five Nordic states have different security and political arrangements. Finland and Sweden, for instance, are members of the European Union, but not members of NATO like Denmark, Iceland and Norway, while Iceland and Norway are not members of the EU. Among the 13 proposals put forward was that Nordic countries should consider patrolling the airspace of Iceland and develop joint surveillance of the seas adjacent to the Nordic region such as the Baltic Sea and north Atlantic to monitor oil spills, for example. In 2006, the US permanent military presence in the North Atlantic nation ceased after 45 years and NATO members subsequently agreed to patrol Iceland's airspace at regular intervals.
