Canada and Denmark agree to end dispute over Arctic island

INA-  sources 

The great "whisky war" between Denmark and Canada - their friendly territorial dispute over a barren and uninhabited rock in the Arctic - has come to an end after 49 years.

The disagreement over who owns the half-square-mile Hans Island has been a source of cordial friction between the two nations for decades.

But now the countries have agreed to divide the tiny island between them in a move they hope will send a "clear signal" that border disputes can be resolved peacefully and pragmatically.

Canada and Denmark agreed in 1973 to create a border through the Nares Strait, halfway between Greenland and Canada, but they were unable to agree which country would have sovereignty over Hans Island, about 684 miles south of the North Pole.
In the end, they decided to work out the question of ownership later.

In the following years, the territorial dispute - nicknamed the "whisky war" by media - raised its head multiple times.
In 1984, Denmark's minister of Greenland affairs raised a Danish flag on the island, buried a bottle of Danish schnapps at the base of the flagpole and left a note saying: "Welcome to the Danish island."

source: sky news