Nordic nations ‘in solidarity’ with Greenland after US threats

TURKU, Finland: Nordic nations stand “in solidarity” with Denmark and Greenland amid US President Donald Trump´s threats to seize the autonomous Danish territory, Norway´s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said on Monday.

Trump has repeatedly said the US needs the strategically located, resource-rich Arctic island for security reasons, and has refused to rule out the use of force to secure it. “You can be fully certain that we stand by you and by Denmark in solidarity,” Store told Greenland´s prime minister at a meeting of Nordic prime ministers in Turku, Finland.

“We will say this message everywhere, if it´s asked in Washington or Brussels or Beijing or everywhere else,” he said. “The Arctic is a regulated area. The Law of the Sea applies, the responsibility of coastal states applies, and we will stand by any community that is feeling pressure on those values,” Store said.

Danish and Greenlandic leaders have insisted that the autonomous territory, where a majority are in favour of independence in the long term, must decide its own future, and have repeatedly said Washington “will never get Greenland”.