Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Icelandic Foreign Minister Valgerður Sverrisdóttir, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller and Faroese Prime Minister Jóannes Eidesgaard signed an Agreed Minutes in New York today on the delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles between Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands in the southern part of the Banana Hole of the Northeast Atlantic.

- This is the first time such agreement has been reached in our region. This will provide clarity and predictability with regard to the future exploitation of resources. It will also contribute to the development of international law in this field in accordance with the objectives of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

The Agreed Minutes provide for an agreed procedure and guidelines for determining future delimitation lines. The final delimitation of the boundary lines will have to be determined by concluding bilateral agreements. This cannot be done until the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf has considered the documentation submitted by the three parties and made its recommendations. The solution agreed on by the parties will not prejudice the Commission’s work.

• The Agreed Minutes