The leader of the Norwegian federation representing the country’s large fleet of fishing boat owners is frustrated by the Russian Navy’s decision to hold military exercises in prime fishing grounds that are within Norway’s economic zone. “There are enough other areas of the Barents Sea where they could be,” Odd Kristian Dahle of the federation Fiskebåt told state broadcaster NRK.
He was reacting to how a Russian warship recently fired warning shots at a Norwegian fishing boat north of Vardø, and then escorted it out of the area. “They should shoot where there are far fewer boats and less conflict than what we’ve seen here,” Dahle said. He claimed the Russians provoked those on board the Norwegian boat and said it was “unnecessary to hold a shooting exercise in the middle of the best fishing grounds where there’s a lot of activity.”
He won support from Thomas Nilsen, editor at the Kirkenes-based news service The Barents Observer, who noted that the Russians could have held their exercises farther east, like they did during the Cold War. “But Russia is a bully state, and they do what they want farther and farther west in the Norwegian economic zone,” Nilsen told NRK. The area is part of international waters, though, and a warning had gone out that the Russians and Chinese participants would be training there.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
