Denmark is standing by its decision to invite only five of the eight Arctic countries to an international meeting next week in Greenland.

Canada will be among the five Arctic coastal states sending foreign affairs ministers to the Arctic Ocean Conference in Ilulissat, Greenland, from May 27 to 29.

In addition to Canada, Denmark has invited the United States, Norway and Russia to Ilulissat, where they will discuss each other's claims to the Arctic Ocean seabed, as well as ways of collaborating in emergencies such as oil spills.

But Iceland, Sweden and Finland should also have been invited, said Rob Huebert, associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

Furthermore, that meeting should have been organized by the Arctic Council — an intergovernmental organization that includes Finland, Sweden and the five countries attending the Ilulisat meeting — rather than being held independently of the council, Huebert said.

"This should have been seen as a way of invigorating the Arctic Council, and the Arctic Council should have been the organization that was given the mandate to deal with it," Huebert told CBC News.

Thomas Winkler, the head of the Danish government's International Law Department in Copenhagen, told CBC News that the Arctic Council will be kept informed about the Ilulissat meeting.

"This meeting in Ilulissat is not a competition to the Arctic Council," Winkler said. "The issues that we're going to discuss will be issues that is the responsibility of the five coastal states of the Arctic Ocean."

Icelandic government officials have already voiced their concerns about being excluded from Ilulissat, but have since been assured that they aren't being left out.

"We are hoping that we are not creating many forums to discuss some of the same issues, that we'd focus within the forum that already exists — the Arctic Council," said Urdur Gunnarsdottir, a spokeswoman for Iceland's Foreign Affairs Department.

"We have discussed this meeting in Ilulissat with some of the countries that are to be present there, and we have received assurances that the meeting will be a one-off, that it is not an attempt to create an alternative forum to the Arctic Council."

Gunnarsdottir said Iceland will be closely following next week's discussions in Greenland.