Russia not planning Arctic claim: Foreign Minister

Russia has no plans to lay territorial claims to the Arctic, according to the country's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

In August last year, a Russian flag was planted there during a scientific expedition to the North Pole.

The move heated up the controversy over an area that a U.S. study suggests may contain as much as 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.

Sergey Lavrov also stressed that Russia's planting its national flag on the sea-bed of the Arctic Ocean is fully in accordance with international law and that the expedition was purely scientific.