US acquisition of Greenland ‘absolutely not necessary,’ Danish foreign minister says after ‘frank’ talks with JD Vance – Europe live
"Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen met with US officials to discuss Greenland, acknowledging the Arctic’s changing security situation but rejecting US control. Despite diplomatic efforts, Rasmussen confirmed a fundamental disagreement with the US over Greenland’s sovereignty, emphasizing Denmark’s alliance with the US while asserting Greenland’s right to self-determination.
Lars Løkke Rasmussen acknowledges ‘new security situation’ in the Arctic but says US control is not the answer after brief meeting in Washington
'New security situation in Arctic' requires response, but not US ownership, Rasmussen says
Responding to questions, Rasmussen once again makes it clear how unusual it is for him to face the US pressure, saying the US president phrased things “quite differently to what I would have done myself,” but says he generally agrees with his security concerns.
He says there is “definitely a new security situation in the Arctic” and the “peace dividend” is over, but notes that it was the US decision to dramatically reduce the number of US personnel based in Greenland from 10,000 to 200 over the years.
“Now the situation is entirely different and of course, we have to respond to this. The big difference is whether that must lead to a situation where, where the US acquires Greenland, and that is absolutely not necessary,” he says.
He also makes a longer comment on how disruptive it is to conduct these discussions through social and other media, and says it was a good opportunity to lower these tensions.
He also says it was a chance to correct some of the claims, as he says “we have not had a Chinese warship in Greenland for a decade or so.”
He stresses that it was a “constructive” meeting that shows a return to dialogue.
Greenland’s Motzfeld strikes a similar tone, saying there’s a conversation to be had about how to strenghten the cooperation with the US, but that doesn’t mean Greenland needs to be owned by the US.
Gentle, diplomatic language cannot hide fundamental disagreements that continue to pose real risks - snap analysis
Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has tried to be as diplomatic as he could – as a former prime minister, he has first-hand experience of dealing with Trump during his first term – but there is no escaping the obvious fact that the Danish and the US views on Greenland are still radically different."
Despite some cautiously chosen language on his talks with JD Vance and Marco Rubio and a clear attempt to show where they agree on the emerging threat in the Arctic (20:08), Rasmussen left no doubt that there was no substantive progress in changing the US president Donald Trump’s determination to control Greenland.
Rasmussen conceded that the joint Danish and Greenlandic delegation couldn’t “change the US position” and there was a “fundamental disagreement” over Trump’s “wish of conquering” Greenland (20:01, 20:12).
Later in the presser, he even went further and took a slight swipe at Trump’s social media comments, saying it’s difficult to “wake up every morning to different threats” (20:19).
The top Danish diplomat did what he could, though, to appeal to the US public more broadly, repeatedly stressing Denmark’s longstanding alliance with the US and its readiness to work constructively with the US administration on resolving the legitimate concerns over the Arctic.
But, fearing the worst, he also set out the red lines on territorial sovereignty and the right of the Greenlandic people to decide about their future."
No comments:
Post a Comment