Denmark’s foreign policy committee has been called to an emergency meeting about the country’s relationship with the United States, according to a press release.
The meeting is convened after Donald Trump expressed that he is serious about his willingness to control Greenland.
During the night of Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said in an interview that he is ”very serious” when it comes to taking over Greenland. However, he said that there is no clear time frame for when this could happen.
Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark but has extensive autonomy.
Trump has long expressed a willingness to take over the strategically important island. Russia, China and other countries equip in the Arctic where there is also access to minerals.
Denmark calls for a crisis meeting
On Tuesday, the Danish Foreign Affairs Committee calls a meeting. There, the participants will discuss the ”kingdom’s relationship with USA”, the press release says.
The committee’s office says the meeting was convened on ”extraordinary grounds”, according to the Ritzau news agency.
Nothing may be taken into the meeting room
Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Troels Lund Poulsen participate in the meeting, which starts at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
According to the Danish newspaper Politiken is it unusual for the committee to meet so late. The meeting will take place in a special room where participants are not even allowed to bring a coffee cup. Usually, participants are not allowed to bring mobiles, but in this room the rules are all the stricter.
It is not certain that anything new will come out of the meeting, according to TV2’s Political Editor Hans Redder. According to him, the meeting is a rather natural consequence of the seriousness of the conflict.
European leaders: Greenland belongs to its people
After the emergency meeting was convened, several European leaders commented on the Greenland issue in a joint statement. The statement is signed by the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Great Britain, and Denmark.
The statement reiterates that Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people and that it is only up to Denmark and Greenland to make decisions on this matter.
It is also said that NATO – to which both the US and Denmark belong – needs to take joint responsibility for security work in the Arctic. It shall take place ”by following the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders. These are universal principles, and we will continue to defend dem”.
Greenland leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen has previously said that calling the US plan a fantasy but that it wants to resume the good cooperation it had with the country in the West.
