[An Nahar] Canada is expected to file an application with the United Nations on Friday seeking to vastly expand its Arctic sea boundary, setting it on a collision course with Russia and Denmark.Orders from the prime minister to eventually also include the North Pole in the claim, revealed in a recent news report, is expected to rankle Moscow and Copenhagen, which also have their eyes on the region.
Canada has spent much of the last decade surveying the far north seabed and gathering evidence in support of its submission to the global body.
Asserting sovereignty over an expansive Arctic archipelago and surrounding waters has been a key plank of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories.
"Canada is in the process of securing its sovereignty over the north," Harper's spokesman, Carl Vallee, told Agence France Presse.
But both Denmark and Russia are expected to file overlapping claims.
Denmark -- which confirmed in a 2011 government report its intention to lay claim to the North Pole -- is expected to submit its petition under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea by the end of next year.
Russia, meanwhile, filed a claim in 2002 but it was rejected due to a lack of supporting scientific evidence. It is widely expected to launch a new bid that includes the Pole after seeing what territories are staked out by Canada and Denmark.
The harsh, frigid and pristine Arctic is believed to be rich in hydrocarbons.
Rising temperatures have boosted interest in it, as melting ice opens up shipping routes and make hitherto inaccessible mineral resources easier to exploit.