Greenland’s government will take part in a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Danish officials next week, following renewed US claims on the Arctic island, the foreign minister said.
“Of course we will participate. We are the ones who requested a meeting,” Vivian Motzfeldt told Danish public broadcaster DR on Wednesday after Rubio confirmed the meeting would take place.
US President Donald Trump has “actively discussed” the purchase of Greenland with his team, the White House said on Wednesday. He added that he preferred diplomacy but would not rule out military action.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “All options are always on the table for President Trump.”
In Washington, Rubio said he would meet with Danish leaders next week and that Trump retained the option to achieve his goal through military means.
“As a diplomat, which is what I am now, and what we are working on, we always prefer to settle it in different ways – including in Venezuela,” Rubio told reporters when asked if the US was willing to potentially endanger NATO with a forced takeover of Greenland.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen had said earlier this week that a meeting with the top US diplomat should “clarify certain misunderstandings”.
He has disputed Trump’s claim that Denmark has neglected security in the Arctic.
Over the past year, Denmark has invested heavily in security, allocating around 90 billion kroner ($21 billion).
Motzfeldt said she hoped the meeting “will lead to a normalization of our relations” with the US.
“Greenland needs the United States and the United States needs Greenland when it comes to Arctic security,” she said.
Trump has in recent days repeated his claim that he wants to gain control of Greenland, an idea first expressed in 2019 during his first presidency.
He argues that the island is key to US military strategy and that Denmark has not done enough to protect it.
Greenland is strategically located between Europe and North America, making it a crucial location for a U.S. ballistic missile defense system for decades.
The mineral wealth also fits in with the US ambition to reduce dependence on China.
International reaction
Leaders of major European powers and Canada this week sided with Greenland, saying the Arctic island belongs to its people.
Johannes Koskinen, chairman of the Finnish parliament’s foreign affairs committee, called for the issue to be raised with NATO.
NATO allies must ask themselves whether anything needs to be done and whether the United States needs to be aligned in that it cannot ignore jointly agreed plans to pursue its own power ambitions, he said.
The next meeting of the North Atlantic Council is scheduled for Thursday.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the topic would be raised at a meeting with the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland.
“We want to take action, but we want to do it together with our European partners,” he said on France Inter radio.
A German government source said separately that Germany was “working closely with other European countries and Denmark on the next steps regarding Greenland.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior European official said Denmark should lead efforts to coordinate a response, but “the Danes still need to communicate to their European allies what kind of concrete support they want to receive.”
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