Denmark’s prime minister has called party leaders to a meeting on Thursday, a government source said, over US President-elect Donald Trump’s ambitions to take control of Greenland.
Trump, who takes office on January 20, set off new alarm bells on Tuesday when he refused to rule out military intervention over the Panama Canal and Greenland, both of which he has said he wants the United States to control.
Trump’s comments came as his son, Donald Trump Jr., made a private visit to the Arctic island that is an autonomous Danish territory.
“Meeting the party leaders allows us to share the measures the government has taken over the last few days,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s office confirmed to AFP the meeting would be held at 7:30 pm (1830 GMT) on Thursday.
Lokke Rasmussen noted that while he did not believe Denmark was in a “foreign policy crisis”, that did not mean “there couldn’t well be one… if words turn to actions”.
He stressed that Denmark had “no ambition whatsoever to escalate a war of words with a president on his way into the Oval Office”.
“My own attitude is that you should take Trump very seriously but not necessarily literally. We take it so seriously that we are also working on it,” Lokke Rasmussen said.
Trump first said he wanted to buy Greenland in 2019 during his first term as US president, an offer quickly rejected by Greenland and Denmark.
Greenland holds major mineral and oil reserves — although oil and uranium exploration are banned.
It has a strategic location in the Arctic and is already home to a US military base.
The Greenlandic government said on Wednesday that “Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland”.
“Greenland’s development and future are decided solely by its people,” it said.
At the same time, it said it would continue to cooperate with the United States “as one of our closest partners”.
“Greenland has had more than 80 years of defence cooperation with the US for the benefit of the security of Greenland, the US and the rest of the western world,” it said.
