WASHINGTON, March 11. /TASS/. Washington does not think that Russia is militarizing the Arctic, US Special Representative for the Arctic Admiral Robert J. Papp, Jr. told TASS in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

"I don't have enough detail on everything that's being done by Canada, by Russia [in the Arctic]," he said. "Russia is doing reasonable things because of the increase of the maritime traffic that's going through the North Sea Route," Papp added.

"If the Northwest Passage opened up and we had an increase of traffic, the United States would probably want to build a Coast Guard air station or a base or something like that," he said. "One person might look at that and say you are militarizing the Arctic, another person might say you are doing reasonable things to make sure you have safety and security," Papp stressed.

All interested countries "oppose military build-ups in the Arctic," he added. "When the rhetoric of countries starts talking about increasing military activities, increasing troop levels, increasing bases, that causes concern for the other Arctic countries and it's not helpful to the things that we want to do within the Arctic Council," Papp said.

"In spite of everything else that's going on in the world, tensions that had been created because of the crisis in Ukraine, we believe it's important to keep this line of communication open with Russia in order to make sure that the Arctic remains a place of stability, peace, cooperation and advancing many good projects," Papp noted.

Russia expands presence in the Arctic

Last March, President Vladimir Putin said that the armed forces’ training and development efforts should incorporate measures to increase the combat component of the Arctic group. The Defense Ministry has since made several steps along these lines.

The ministry was going to build 13 airdromes and 10 radars in the Arctic.