COPENHAGEN, March 14 — Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen pushed back Friday on US President Donald Trump’s latest remarks about annexing Greenland, saying the Danish autonomous island could not be taken over by another country.
“If you look at the Nato treaty, the UN charter or international law, Greenland is not open to annexation,” Lokke told reporters.
Asked by reporters in the White House Thursday about taking over the island, Trump said: “I think it will happen.”
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte who was meeting him at the time refused to be drawn.
But Greenland’s outgoing Prime Minister Mute Egede said “enough is enough”. He said he was calling a meeting of party leaders to jointly reject Trump’s remark.
“This time we need to toughen our rejection of Trump. People cannot continue to disrespect us,” Egede wrote on Facebook.
Egede continues to lead Greenland while awaiting the formation of a new government after his party’s defeat in elections on Tuesday.
“The American president has once again evoked the idea of annexing us. I absolutely cannot accept that,” he wrote.
“I respect the result of the election, but I consider that I have an obligation as interim head of government: I have therefore asked the administration to summon the party heads as soon as possible.”
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, leader of the election winning centre-right Democrats and likely future Greenlandic prime minister, also criticised Trump’s statement.
“Trump’s statement from the US is inappropriate and just shows once again that we must stand together in such situations,” Nielsen said in a post to Facebook.
In his first stint as US president, Trump had evoked the idea of buying Greenland from Denmark—an idea rejected by both Copenhagen and Greenlanders.
Since returning to power this year, Trump has stepped up his quest to acquire the territory, but in much more bellicose terms.
Trump claims the US needs to own Greenland for its own security.
According to polls, most Greenlanders support independence from Denmark but not annexation by Washington. — AFP
