By CLAUDIA CIOBANU Associated Press
Denmark has welcomed a meeting with the U.S. next week to discuss President Donald Trump’s renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island of Greenland to come under American control.
“This is the dialogue that is needed, as requested by the government together with the Greenlandic government,” Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told Danish broadcaster DR on Thursday.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said on Wednesday a meeting about Greenland would happen next week, without giving details about timing, location or participants.
“I’m not here to talk about Denmark or military intervention. I’ll be meeting with them next week, we’ll have those conversations with them then,” Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Greenland’s government has told Danish public broadcaster DR that Greenland will participate in the meeting between Denmark and the U.S. announced by Rubio.
“Nothing about Greenland without Greenland. Of course we will be there. We are the ones who requested the meeting,” Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt told DR.
The island of Greenland, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people.
Vance criticizes Denmark
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that Denmark “obviously” had not done a proper job in securing Greenland and that Trump “is willing to go as far as he has to” to defend American interests in the Arctic.
In an interview with Fox News, Vance repeated Trump’s claim that Greenland is crucial to both the U.S. and the world’s national security because “the entire missile defense infrastructure is partially dependent on Greenland.”
He said the fact that Denmark has been a faithful military ally of the U.S. during World War II and the more recent “war on terrorism” did not necessarily mean they were doing enough to secure Greenland today.
“Just because you did something smart 25 years ago doesn’t mean you can’t do something dumb now,” Vance said, adding that Trump “is saying very clearly, ‘you are not doing a good job with respect to Greenland.’”
Right to self-determination
Vance’s comments came after Rubio told a select group of U.S. lawmakers that it was the Republican administration’s intention to eventually purchase Greenland, as opposed to using military force.
“Many Greenlanders feel that the remarks made are disrespectful,” Aaja Chemnitz, one of the two Greenlandic politicians in the Danish parliament, told The Associated Press. “Many also experience that these conversations are being discussed over their heads. We have a firm saying in Greenland, ‘Nothing about Greenland, without Greenland.’”
She said most Greenlanders “wish for more self-determination, including independence” but also want to “strengthen cooperation with our partners” in security and business development as long as it is based on “mutual respect and recognition of our right to self-determination.”
Chemnitz denied a claim by Trump that Greenland is “covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”
Greenland is “a longstanding ally and partner to the U.S. and we have a shared interest in stability, security, and responsible cooperation in the Arctic,” she said. “There is an agreement with the U.S. that gives them access to have bases in Greenland if needed.”
France’s President Emmanuel Macron has denounced the “law of the strongest” that is making people “wonder if Greenland will be invaded.”
In a speech to French ambassadors at the Elysee presidential palace on Thursday, Macron said: “It’s the greatest disorder, the law of the strongest, and everyday people wonder whether Greenland will be invaded, whether Canada will be under the threat of becoming the 51st state (of the United States) or whether Taiwan is to be further circled.”
He pointed to an “increasingly dysfunctional” world where great powers, including the U.S and China, have “a real temptation to divide the world amongst themselves.”
The United States is “gradually turning away from some of its allies and freeing itself from the international rules,” Macron said.
Surveillance operations for the US
“Greenland belongs to its people,” Antonio Costa, the President of the European Council, said on Wednesday. “Nothing can be decided about Denmark and about Greenland without Denmark, or without Greenland. They have the full solid support and solidarity of the European Union.”
The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the U.K. joined Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday in defending Greenland’s sovereignty in the wake of Trump’s comments about Greenland, which is part of the NATO military alliance.
After Vance’s visit to Greenland last year, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen published a video detailing the 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the U.S.. Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations on the island, Rasmussen said, to the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest with some 200 soldiers today. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.
The 1951 agreement “offers ample opportunity for the United States to have a much stronger military presence in Greenland,” Rasmussen said. “If that is what you wish, then let us discuss it.”
‘Military defense of Greenland’
Last year, Denmark’s parliament approved a bill to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil. The legislation widens a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.
Denmark is moving to strengthen its military presence around Greenland and in the wider North Atlantic.
Last year, the government announced a 14.6 billion-kroner ($2.3 billion) agreement with parties including the governments of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another self-governing territory of Denmark, to “improve capabilities for surveillance and maintaining sovereignty in the region.”
The plan includes three new Arctic naval vessels, two additional long-range surveillance drones and satellite capacity.
Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command, headquartered in Nuuk, is tasked with the “surveillance, assertion of sovereignty and military defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands,” according to its website. It has smaller satellite stations across the island.
The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance and enforces Danish sovereignty in the Arctic wilderness, is also stationed in Greenland.
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Seung Min Kim in Washington and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.