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Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen will go to Greenland subsequent week and meet the island’s newly appointed chief Jens-Frederik Nielsen after US vice-president JD Vance claimed Denmark was neglecting the autonomous territory.
Danish officers on Saturday pushed again towards the US criticism, saying America had uncared for Greenland’s safety by considerably scaling again its navy presence within the Arctic.
Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark’s overseas minister, responded to the US vice-president’s uninvited go to to an American navy base in Greenland on Friday by saying Copenhagen was “open to criticism” however “we don’t recognize the tone by which it’s being delivered — this isn’t the way you converse to your shut allies”.
He added: “In 1945, america had 17 bases and navy installations in Greenland with 1000’s of troopers. Right this moment, just one American base is left . . . and one thing like 200 troopers. We are able to do extra, way more, inside the framework we’ve at this time . . . Allow us to do it collectively.”
Donald Trump’s public want to take over Greenland from Denmark has positioned the way forward for the Arctic island and its 57,000 folks in the geopolitical highlight.
Vance, along with US nationwide safety adviser Mike Waltz and power secretary Chris Wright, visited the Pituffik Area Base and accused Denmark of not doing “a very good job by the folks of Greenland”.
Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark however a majority of its inhabitants ultimately need independence from Copenhagen.
Danish officers, who unveiled a $2bn defence package deal after conceding that that they had not invested sufficient within the island’s safety, initially took a cautious method to Trump’s expansionist claims. However prior to now week they’ve grown extra assertive.
Rasmussen mentioned Vance had additionally admitted that the US had not invested sufficient within the Arctic. “The actual fact is, all of us have been harvesting the peace dividend. All of us acted on the belief that the Arctic was and ought to be a low-tension space. However that point is over. Establishment shouldn’t be an choice,” he mentioned.
Trump has argued that the US has fallen behind Russia and China in areas resembling icebreakers as its two greatest geopolitical rivals gear up for a melting of the ice within the far north.
However Danish and Greenlandic officers have been horrified by his rhetoric that “we’ve to have” Greenland, refusing to rule out navy drive.
On Friday Vance mentioned that he didn’t assume “navy drive is ever going to be mandatory”, partially as a result of he anticipated Greenlanders to decide on independence from Denmark and thereafter a better partnership with the US. The vice-president added that there have been threats from China and Russia to Greenland, however specialists mentioned the only real public menace had come from the US.
Denmark has despatched troops to battle alongside US troopers in Afghanistan and Iraq and its officers have been dismayed by the criticism from their closest safety ally. However they have been additionally relieved that Vance didn’t escalate issues. “I believed it could have been worse,” one mentioned.
Frederiksen mentioned that Vance’s criticism was not “a good strategy to seek advice from Denmark”, which she referred to as “a very good and powerful ally” to the US.
Underneath a wide-ranging defence settlement from 1951, the US is allowed to arrange navy bases throughout Greenland so long as it doesn’t impinge on Denmark’s sovereignty.
Greenlandic and Danish officers mentioned that that they had proposed a number of occasions lately for the US to extend its navy footprint however America has as an alternative scaled again its presence.
Greenland unveiled a brand new, broad authorities coalition on Friday. Nielsen has criticised Vance for an absence of respect by saying his uninvited go to whereas the federal government formation talks have been nonetheless happening. Plenty of Danish ministers have mentioned they’ll quickly go to, now {that a} new authorities has been shaped.
