Yakutia can and should rally subpolar and Northeast Asian countries in the implementation of joint projects, Aisen Nikolayev, head of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), said at the opening of the plenary session of the Northern Sustainable Development Forum.

The forum, which began in Yakutsk on September 24 and will end on September 28, is being attended by delegates from eight subpolar states (Russia, Canada, the United States, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark) and three Northeast Asian nations (China, South Korea and Japan), as well as by delegations from the Russian Ministry for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, Russia's Far Eastern Investment and Export Agency, the Nenets and Khanty-Mansi autonomous areas, plus the Kamchatka and Khabarovsk territories.

Nikolayev urged the participants to focus their attention on the northern regions' problems.

"When we think about the North, we must think above all about the people who have lived here for centuries in harmony with the northern nature and who have created a unique culture and economic paradigm. <…> Of course, a desire to live in big cities <…> has a negative effect on the scarcely populated northern regions around the world. Yakutia is a demographically affluent region, yet the population in its Arctic zone has decreased by nearly 9 percent over the past decades," the head of Yakutia noted.

Aisen Nikolayev expressed confidence that the experts from the 11 countries attending the forum would help find effective solutions to the problems ailing the North.