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 passage of Soviet submarines while the Royal Navy was threatened by further serious defence and naval cuts by the Royal Navy's chief "bête noire", the Chancellor of Exchequer and former Minister of Defence, Denis Healey. The Royal Navy saw its strategic aim at the time to be as much as fighting Healey as the Soviet Navy. The Second and Third Cod Wars were necessary wars for the Royal Navy, like the Falklands Operation, six years later. To Crosland, also MP for the trawler port of Grimsby, the third war was a more serious threat to the Western Alliance than the