US Reports About Wrangel Island Issue Provocative, Such Initiatives Are Extremist, Envoy Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The ideas circulating in the US press about the "return" of Wrangel Island to the United States are extremist, and it is undeniable that the island is part of Russian territory, Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials and Russian Ambassador-at-Large Nikolay Korchunov told Sputnik.

"Our country has full sovereignty over this northern territory and coastal waters," Korchunov told Sputnik, adding that attempts to question this "are provocative in nature and are made solely for the purpose of personal PR."

He emphasized that he did not think that the authorities in Washington would risk at any serious level raising the territorial issue in relation to the Russian-US border, as that would lead to an immediate response from Moscow.

"In the context of an unprecedented aggravation of confrontation in Russian-American relations due to Washington's fault, it is not surprising that various kinds of extremist initiatives have appeared. Attempts to present territorial claims to Russia, arbitrarily interpreting the facts and rewriting history, are obviously counterproductive and fraught with consequences," Korchunov said.

Earlier this week, US media reported that the United States could have a claim on Wrangel Island, which is located in the Arctic Ocean in Russia's far east, between the East Siberian Sea and the Chukchi Sea.