No country can just come and “use” Greenland, the autonomous territory of Denmark that Donald Trump longs for, the Danish foreign minister said.
The current US president caused concern in early January when he refused to rule out the possibility of military intervention to bring Greenland and the Panama Canal under US control.
“We cannot have a world order where some countries, if they are big enough, can use other territories if they want to,” Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters the day after Trump took office.
Trump did not mention the Danish territory in his inauguration speech, but later told reporters that Denmark would eventually concede on the issue.
The minister said that he was “satisfied” that Trump did not mention Greenland as a priority in his speech, but added that his rhetoric remained the same.
“I don’t mean to say that the crisis no longer exists, given that he said some other things about the expansion of American territory,” said Løkke Rasmussen.
Still, among Danes, the omission of Greenland from the inaugural speech caused some relief.
“He didn’t mention either Greenland or Denmark in his speech last night, so I believe there is room for diplomacy,” actor Donald Andersen (68) told AFP.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wrote in a post on Instagram yesterday that Europe will now have to “maneuver within the new reality”.
Recalling the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination, she also emphasized the need for Denmark to maintain its alliance with the United States, which is considered the most important for Denmark since World War II. She gathered Danish party leaders again on Tuesday to brief them on the situation.
“We have to admit that the next four years will be difficult,” Pia Olsen Dyhr, leader of the Green Left, told reporters after the meeting.
Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede once again stressed that Greenland is not opposed to closer ties with Washington, but that the island is not for sale.
Apart from its exceptional strategic position, Greenland, which is seeking independence from Denmark, has huge untapped reserves of minerals and oil.
Trump first said that he wanted to buy Greenland in 2019, during his first term, but the offer was decisively rejected by both Greenland and Denmark.
(Vijesti.ba)
