Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has dismissed claims that the Arctic is a new strategic battleground and called on the world's five Arctic powers to resolve their rival territorial claims according to international law.

Speaking at the international arctic forum in Moscow, Putin admitted that the Arctic and its oil riches were the subject of competing "geo-political interests" but said that all claims – including Russia's – should be decided under existing UN rules. "We should maintain the Arctic as a region for peace and co-operation," Putin declared.

"If you stand alone you can't survive in the Arctic. Nature makes people and states to help each other."

His unexpectedly conflict-averse comments come as the Arctic states – Russia, Norway, Canada, Denmark and the US – frantically scramble to assert their legal rights to parts of the Arctic zone.

Underlying the contest is the fact that the region's huge untapped reserves of gas and oil have become increasingly accessible as the polar ice cap shrinks due to global warming.

Putin admitted the Arctic contained "billions of barrels of oil" but called for the preservation of its "unique nature and fragile ecosystem". He also announced a major clean-up in Russia's northern territories of rubbish left behind during communist times. "We have to clean up the mess created over decades and left behind on islands, on airfields in the tundra region and in the waters of the Arctic," he told the forum.

Despite Putin's diplomatic calls for "partnership", Russia is pursuing its own claim to the Arctic's disputed undersea Lomonosov Ridge. Russia, Canada and Denmark all plan to file separate claims to the UN to show that the underwater mountain range – and its vast oil and mineral deposits – are an extension of their sovereign territory.

Sitting in the front row during the Arctic forum was Artur Chilingarov, a bearded Russian explorer who personifies the Kremlin's new and gritty Arctic ambitions. After the UN rejected Moscow's 2001 claim to the Lomonosov Ridge, Chilingarov led a 2007 expedition to the Arctic seabed, on which he deposited a Russian flag using a mini-submarine. An annoyed Canada dismissed Chilingarov's gesture as a meaningless stunt.

On Wednesday, Chilingarov announced he would head another expedition next month to launch a floating research station in the Arctic. The station – together with an icebreaker and a research ship already in position – would gather fresh scientific evidence to bolster the Kremlin's claims to the Arctic, which Russia identified two years ago as a "strategic economic resource".

Putin said that Russia's history had been intimately linked with Arctic exploration, and claimed that Russian navigators first entered the Arctic seas in the 11th century. He said that 70% of Russia's vast territory was located in the "northern region", and that the country had "unique experience" in building major settlements north of the Arctic Circle. He added: "History and geography have placed us with a need to explore the Arctic land, and its northern sea routes."

The conference has been dubbed "The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue". It brings together 300 participants, including scientists, environmental campaigners and government Arctic envoys. Despite the collaborative mood, the conference inevitably touched on oil. On Wednesday, Leopold Lobkovsky, vice president of Russia's Institute of Oceanology, estimated that Russia's chunk of the Arctic contains 51 billion tonnes of oil and 87 trillion cubic metres of gas. Russia's current reserves – excluding the Arctic – are put at 10-20 billion tonnes of oil and 47.5 trillion cubic metres of gas.

One Russian expert said that the Kremlin's policy on the Arctic hadn't changed much since 1989, when Mikhail Gorbachev asserted Moscow's peaceful claim to adjacent Arctic territory. "I think you have to get a balance between co-operative behaviour and national interest. It's a very difficult balance," said Alexander Pelyasov, director of Russia's centre of the North and Arctic Economy.

"Unfortunately over the past 20 years we have sometimes gone in this and that direction."

Putin praised a deal last week between Norway and Russia under which both sides agreed to demarcate their sea borders in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean. The deal ended a 40-year dispute. "That was a very good example of how to achieve a compromise acceptable to both sides," Putin said.

In its annual report released this month, the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center said that Arctic sea ice melted over the summer to cover the third-smallest area on record. It also warned that global warming could leave the region ice-free in the month of September 2030.