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 fishing communities lost access to rich areas and were devastated, with thousands of jobs lost. Since 1982, a exclusive economic zone has been the United Nations standard. The term "cod war" was coined by a British journalist in early September 1958. None of the Cod Wars met any of the common thresholds for a conventional war, and they may more accurately be described as militarised interstate disputes. There is only one confirmed death during the Cod Wars: an Icelandic engineer, who was accidentally killed in the Second Cod War. While he was repairing damage on the Icelandic gunboat "Ægir" after