Foreign relations of Iceland Foreign relations of Iceland Iceland's closest relations are with Norway and other Nordic states, Canada and the United States. Iceland hosted the historic 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavík, which set the stage for the end of the Cold War. Iceland's principal historical international disputes involved disagreements over fishing rights. Conflict with the United Kingdom led to the so-called Cod Wars in 1952–56 because of the extension of the fishing zone from 3 to 4 nautical miles (6 to 7 km), 1958–61 because of extending the fishing zone to 12 nautical miles (22 km) in 1972–73 because of its further extension
Cod Wars Wars because Icelandic statesmen were too greatly constrained by domestic politics to offer compromises to the British, but British statesmen were not as constrained by public opinion at home. International relations scholars such as Robert Keohane, Joseph Nye, Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger and Ned Lebow have written on the Cod Wars. The 2016 review article finds that lessons from the Cod Wars have most commonly been applied to liberal and realist international relations theory and theories on asymmetric bargaining. It claims that the Cod Wars are widely seen as inconsistent with the precepts of the liberal peace, since democracy, trade