NUUK, Greeland (AP) — Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said Monday that he had a respectful and positive meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump ’s special envoy to the Arctic territory, but that he made it clear that the Greenlandic people continue to insist on self-determination.
Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and Trump in the past has frequently insisted that the U.S. should take control of the island for security reasons, which has raised sovereignty concerns and pushback from Greenlandic and Danish leaders.
“The Greenlandic people are not for sale. Greenlandic self-determination is not something that can be negotiated,” Nielsen was quoted by Danish TV 2 as saying after meeting on the island with the envoy, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.
Nielsen also reiterated that the Greenlandic people “seek good cooperation” with the U.S., and said his “courtesy meeting” with Landry took place with “mutual respect and in a positive atmosphere.”
Landry reportedly said upon his arrival in Greenland on Sunday that Trump had told him to “go over there and make as many friends as we can get,” public Danish broadcaster DR reported.
Greenland’s Foreign Minister Múte B. Egede told reporters Monday that a working group involving the U.S., Greenland, and Denmark continues to try to find a solution to the repeated U.S. demands for control over Greenland. Trump has suggested that Russia or China may be on the verge of seizing Greenland, a notion that regional experts have dismissed.
“We haven’t been the ones creating obstacles to cooperation between the United States and Greenland,” said the Greenlandic foreign minister, who also participated in the meeting with Landry and his delegation in the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk.
“So if we are to continue down this positive and constructive path, we must await the working group’s report,” he said, according to TV 2, adding that the work in the group appears “more promising” than before.
U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Ken Howery, who is also part of the American delegation in Greenland, is expected to inaugurate the U.S. Consulate’s new offices in Nuuk, and both he and Landry are to attend a business fair on Tuesday and Wednesday, local media reported.
