page_title: Murmansk Initiative
section_title: Scientific exploration
hierarchical_section_title: Murmansk Initiative / Overview / Scientific exploration
caption_attribution_description: "Siberian eskimo"
context_page_description: The Murmansk Initiative was a series of wide-range foreign policy proposals concerning the Arctic region made in a speech by the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - Mikhail Gorbachev - on October 1, 1987 in Murmansk, Soviet Union, considered to be a trademark of his foreign policy.
  The initiative tied together economic, environmental, and security issues in the Arctic. Gorbachev's aim was to transform the Arctic Circle from being a military theater to an international zone of peace among the Arctic powers. The initiative was launched as an invitation for disarmament of nuclear weapons and establishment of an East-West dialogue around the Arctic.
  The Murmansk speech's goals paralleled Gorbachev's ambitions in previous speeches, like the one in Vladivostok dealing with Asia-Pacific relations and a later speech in Belgrade dealing with problems pertaining to security in the Mediterranean Region.
  The Murmansk Initiative was considered a major turning point in the Arctic policy of the Soviet Union and represented the application of Gorbachev's "new political thinking" in Northern Europe.
context_section_description: Prior to the late 1980s, there was little interaction between the Soviet and Western spheres regarding scientific exploration of the Arctic. Scientists from the Soviet Union were not included in scientific gatherings in Western territory, and any collaboration was plagued with distrust. To change this, Gorbachev in his Murmansk speech proposed an international conference to be held in Murmansk for the purpose of coordination of scientific research in the Arctic region.
caption: A picture of a Siberian Yupik woman taken during the time of the Russian Empire
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