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Denmark: US Talks Chance for Dialogue 01/08 06:26
(AP) -- 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.
Purchase Greenland
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 Two 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.'"
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.
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
Lokke 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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