.png)
4 hours ago
5
Denmark and Greenland have said any agreement with the US to develop a significant military presence in the strategic Arctic territory will not compromise Greenland’s sovereignty.
In a statement on Saturday clarifying an announcement by Donald Trump that an agreement had been reached to give Washington “permanent control” over Greenland’s security, Denmark and the semiautonomous territory expressed hope that a deal would end friction with the US over the issue.
Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said that he was pleased with the proposed deal. “The agreement recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our kingdom and the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination,” he said in a post on Facebook.
“Next week could be a good week – for Greenland, Denmark and the United States,” Denmark’s foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, said in a statement, also on Facebook.
“A time of uncertainty will hopefully give way to a binding agreement that strengthens security in the Arctic and the north Atlantic, and thereby our shared security within Nato Europe – while respecting the Danish kingdom’s red lines,” Rasmussen said.
The US, Denmark and Greenland said late on Friday they had reached a deal to allow the US to develop a significant military presence on Greenland, while prohibiting US adversaries from building their own bases on the island.
The deal is expected to be signed during the UN general assembly next week.
Key details of the agreement have not been made public, including the degree of the US military presence in the self-governing Danish territory and whether any formal power over foreign policy and resources would be ceded to Washington.
Trump said on social media that under the deal, “the United States will FOREVER have the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland in order to secure and defend the security of Greenland, and the United States of America”.
He added that the agreement would give the US “permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland”.
The security and mineral resources of the vast northern island have been subject to Washington’s foreign policy and attention since the start of the second Trump administration, with officials citing national security, access to valuable natural resources, including rare earth minerals, and control over emerging Arctic shipping lanes.
The island had a significant US military presence in the 1950s, when fears of annihilation in a US-Soviet nuclear exchange required that long-range nuclear bombers and early-warning systems be based on Greenland.
after newsletter promotion
The US still maintains a reduced military presence at the Pituffik space base, formerly known as Thule, on the island to monitor for missiles.
Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen, told Reuters that the Denmark-US deal “is probably not the end of President Trump’s ambitions for Greenland and certainly not the end of US strategic interest in the territory and its resources”.
Rasmussen added that if Copenhagen cedes any formal power to Washington over Greenland, which it has held for 1,000 years, it would raise questions for Greenlanders of whether “this is the beginning of replacing the colonial relationship with Denmark with a colonial relationship to the United States”.
US ambitions for greater sway over the Arctic island have strained relations with Nato. In January, European member nations sent military personnel to Greenland to demonstrate military readiness. Eight European allies issued a joint statement confirming their commitment to Arctic security. Negotiations followed.
A Nato spokesperson on Saturday said the alliance welcomed the agreement, which would “help advance security, stability and cooperation in this vital region”.
Reuters contributed reporting
