Nordic country dispatches \u2018substantial contribution\u2019 of troops to the Arctic territory amid standoff with Washington.<\/p>\n
Denmark has sent additional troops to Greenland amid United States President Donald Trump\u2019s threats to take control of the self-governing Danish territory.<\/p>\n
The chief of the Royal Danish Army, Peter Boysen, and a \u201csubstantial contribution\u201d of soldiers landed in Kangerlussuaq in western Greenland on Monday evening, public broadcaster DR and other Danish media reported.<\/p>\n
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Public broadcaster TV2 reported that 58 Danish troops landed in the Arctic territory, joining about 60 others dispatched earlier to participate in ongoing multinational military exercises, dubbed Operation Arctic Endurance.<\/p>\n
Denmark\u2019s Ministry of Defence and the Danish Armed Forces did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The deployment came hours after Trump declined to rule out using military force to take control of the vast, mineral-rich Arctic territory, which the US president claims is vital to Washington\u2019s security.<\/p>\n
In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Trump replied, \u201cno comment\u201d, in response to a question about whether he could seize the island by force.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s remarks came after he told Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Storer in a text message over the weekend that he no longer felt obliged to \u201cthink purely of Peace\u201d after not being awarded this year\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n
Denmark has expressed openness to a beefed-up US military presence in Greenland, but has repeatedly said the territory is not for sale and that any move to take the island by force would spell the end of NATO.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s insistence that Greenland must be brought under US control has brought US-European relations to their lowest ebb in decades and raised fears about the potential disintegration of the transatlantic security alliance, whose 32 members include both the US and Denmark.<\/p>\n
Under Article 5 of NATO\u2019s charter, the alliance considers an armed attack against any one member as an attack against all.<\/p>\n
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Monday met with Danish Minister of Defence Troels Lund Poulsen and Greenland\u2019s minister of foreign affairs, Vivian Motzfeldt, to discuss proposals for boosting Arctic security, including the establishment of a joint NATO mission in the Danish territory.<\/p>\n
Rutte said in a statement that the sides had discussed the importance of the Arctic to \u201cour collective security\u201d and Copenhagen\u2019s growing investments in its defence capabilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to work together as Allies on these important issues,\u201d Rutte said.<\/p>\n
Poulsen stressed the need for unity following the talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you to our allies for standing up for Greenland and Denmark,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
EU\u2019s \u2018trade bazooka\u2019<\/p>\n
At the same time that Trump\u2019s moves are placing security ties under strain, his threat to impose tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries until a deal is reached to buy Greenland has raised the prospect of a full-blown transatlantic trade war.<\/p>\n
The European Union is set to convene an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss its response to the crisis, with retaliatory tariffs and the activation of the bloc\u2019s anti-coercion mechanism among the options under consideration.<\/p>\n
Triggering the Anti-Coercion Instrument, also known as the \u201ctrade bazooka\u201d, would allow the bloc to impose sweeping restrictions on the investment and business activities of US tech firms within the single market.<\/p>\n
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday that she had stressed the \u201cneed to unequivocally respect the sovereignty\u201d of Denmark and Greenland in a meeting with US diplomats on the sidelines of the Davos summit in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is of utmost importance to our transatlantic relationship,\u201d von der Leyen said. \u201cAt the same time, the European Union remains ready to continue working closely with the United States, NATO, and other allies, in close cooperation with Denmark, to advance our shared security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
An opinion poll, commissioned by Danish paper Berlingske last year, suggested that 85 percent of Greenland\u2019s residents did not wish to join the US, with just 6 percent in favour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nordic country dispatches \u2018substantial contribution\u2019 of troops to the Arctic territory amid standoff with Washington. Denmark has sent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[6178,365,32,299,2597,12,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-707873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-denmark","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-us-canada","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115925589840597841","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}