'You never know when you're going to make a breakthrough.'

KUUJJUAQ – Inuit must have more direct input into how circumpolar nations divide up the resource-rich Arctic Ocean, say delegates at last week's Inuit Circumpolar Council summit on Arctic sovereignty.

Inuit aren't saying they're the sole owners of the Arctic, said Duane Smith, Canada's ICC president. But he said Inuit want to be a party to all international discussions on sovereignty.

Arctic governments must "include Inuit as equal partners in any future talks regarding Arctic sovereignty," reads a statement issued after the two-day ICC meeting in Kuujjuaq.

"They are obligated under various legal instruments – both national and international – to include Inuit in meaningful and direct ways in all and any discussions of sovereignty over lands and seas we have lived on for thousands of years."

Jurisdiction over the Arctic Ocean and its underwater cache of oil, gas, gold, nickel and diamonds is increasingly the object of international discussions.

That's because the five nations with Arctic seacoasts – Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Russian Federation and the United States – are staking claims over these Arctic waters.

"How can we be active partners and assert our rights?" Aqqaluk Lynge asked delegates meeting in Kuujjuaq.

Lynge said Inuit must participate in discussions like last May's Arctic sovereignty summit in Ilulissat, Greenland.

This meeting included representatives from the five coastal nations bordering on the Arctic Ocean, but had no formal Inuit participation.

Inuit leaders who met in Kuujjuaq want Inuit to have a defined place in future international meetings, such as the December 2009 United Nations climate change conference and the G-8 summit in 2010.

While there's no formal mechanism to involve Inuit in these meetings, ICC wants a greater role.

Founded in 1977 by the late Eben Hopson of Barrow, Alaska, ICC, a non-governmental organization, represents the approximately 150,000 Inuit of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka.

Those in Kuujjuaq included the ICC president, Patricia Cochran of Alaska, along with ICC national presidents from Alaska, Greenland, Canada.

Mary Simon, president of Canada's Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, regional Inuit leaders from Nunavik, Nunatsiavut and Nunavut, and Floyd Roland, the premier of the Northwest Territories, also attended the meeting held in Kuujjuaq's Kaittitavik community centre.

Asked if it's realistic to see Inuit included at the highest level of international government discussions on sovereignty, Simon said there's always hope.

Simon recalled how, as an observer, she was forbidden to even speak at a circumpolar environmental meeting in the early 1990s where Inuit now have a place at the table.

"It feels like we're not getting anywhere, but this [statement] is a step. We have to build on this step," she said.

Arctic nations like Canada must also realize that sovereignty involves more than infrastructure and military exercises – sovereignty is also about people, healthy communities and good environmental management practices, she said.

As for the rush to claim the Arctic Ocean and its resources, Simon said it's not too late for Inuit to make their voice heard.

"You never know when you're going to make a breakthrough," she said.

Arctic nation-states are scrambling to meet a 2009 deadline under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

This agreement gives rights to nations over maritime areas extending to 200 nautical miles, or 370 kms from their coastlines.

But if nation states can produce geological evidence to show that their continental shelves extend beyond 370 kms, their national boundaries may be extended even further. An estimated 122 countries, including some Arctic states, are expected to submit petitions to the UN by May 13, 2009.

During the Kuujjuaq meeting, delegates listened to presentations from academics and experts on sovereignty. Then they hashed out a statement, promising to produce a stronger Inuit declaration on sovereignty in the Arctic within six months.

Foreign ministers from the Arctic nations will have this declaration in hand when they meet again at the next Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Tromsø, Norway in April, 2009.

However, to date, the Arctic Council, an inter-government forum on issues faced by Arctic governments and indigenous people, has sidestepped discussing issues of sovereignty and climate change, mainly due to U.S. opposition.

But ICC hopes the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president will transform the Arctic Council, where ICC sits as a permanent indigenous participant, into a stronger organization.

Officials from Inuit-elected governments largely ignored last week's meeting in Kuujjuaq.

There were no elected politicians or non-elected bureaucrats from the Government of Nunavut, although Nunavut premier Paul Okalik was supposed to attend. No observers from the federal government or Quebec were present.

Hans Enoksen, the premier of Greenland, also cancelled at the last minute.

Greenland is holding a referendum Nov. 25 to approve a plan that would give Greenland more independence from Denmark.

The Kuujjuaq meeting also approved a resolution supporting the right of Greenlanders to determine their future as a people.

The Nov. 7 meeting coincided with "International Inuit Day," declared at the 2006 ICC general assembly in Barrow.

ICC plans to hold similar get-togethers among Inuit leaders every year on Nov. 7 to promote Inuit concerns.