politics
Iceland and Norway Forge Closer Defense Ties
On Wednesday, Iceland and Norway signed a Memorandum of Understanding on enhanced defense cooperation. “This will improve our readiness to respond to rapid changes in our security environment in the Arctic and in Europe,” says the Icelandic Foreign Minister.
Published
Modified
This week, the Norwegian Minister of Defense Tore O. Sandvik (Labor) hosted a ministerial meeting of the Nordic Defense Cooperation (NORDEFCO) in Trøndelag, Norway.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Sandvik and Iceland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir (Liberal Reform Party) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on enhanced defense cooperation.
The agreement provides a comprehensive framework for more dialogue and cooperation in areas such as surveillance and analysis, capacity building and infrastructure development, host nation support, resilience and protection of critical infrastructure.
“The defense cooperation between Iceland and Norway is built on a very strong foundation. This new agreement will strengthen it further and improve our readiness to respond to rapid changes in our security environment in the Arctic and in Europe,” Gunnarsdóttir says in a press release.
Sandvik also underlines the already close defense ties between the countries.
“Norway has participated several times in NATO Air Policing in Iceland with fighters to monitor and protect Icelandic airspace. This strengthens security in the North Atlantic and shows how allies take joint responsibility for security and stability,” he states.
High priority
“This agreement fits into a pattern in which Norways is perhaps the Nordic country with the greatest focus on Iceland, followed by Denmark,” says Håkon Lunde Saxi, Professor at the Norwegian Defense Command and Staff College, to High North News.
“Norway contributes to NATO Air Policing in both Iceland and the Baltics, but has prioritized presence in Iceland much higher. Statistics from a few years ago showed that two-thirds of Norwegian contributions to this type of NATO mission were in Iceland, while Danish contributions were fairly evenly distributed.”
The Norwegian and Allied attention to Iceland, which has no armed forces, is particularly linked to the importance of open sea lines of communication, Saxi points out.
“Iceland is an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ in the North Atlantic with great importance for securing logistics routes towards the Fennoscandian peninsula on which Norway, Sweden and Finland are located. This is clearly illustrated when NATO conducts large exercises in the Nordic region: Iceland is used as a hub to protect the sea routes to bring in allied reinforcements and supplies,” he outlines.
This autumn, Iceland also signed bilateral defense agreements with Germany and Finland.
