Greenland's prime minister, Múte B Egede, has called for the international community to step in and accused Washington of "foreign interference" following the announcement that Donald Trump's national security adviser and US second lady would visit the Arctic island.
Mike Waltz and Usha Vance are due to arrive in Greenland this week as part of a delegation that will also include US Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Trump has vowed to make the autonomous region, part of the Danish kingdom that ruled Greenland as a colony until 1953 and continues to control its foreign and security policy, “somehow” part of the United States, and has refused to rule out the possibility of using military or economic force to do so.
A Danish police spokesman said they had sent extra personnel and sniffer dogs to Greenland as they increased security ahead of the visit. René Gyldensten said the extra officers deployed on Sunday were part of regular steps taken during dignitaries’ visits, but he declined to specify how many extra officers were flown in on a chartered plane. News reports put the figure in the dozens.
Greenland's parties are currently in coalition talks after an election less than two weeks ago in which the country voted for a complete overhaul of its government. The Democrats replaced Egede's Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party as the largest party in Greenland's parliament, Inatsisartut.
Egede reacted angrily to the White House announcement on Sunday, accusing Greenland's allies of "hiding" and "almost whispering" their support. He warned that the situation would escalate if the international community did not step up its support for Greenland.
“Yes, the Western allies stood together and helped each other through thick and thin, but with the incumbent president in the US things have turned upside down. But the fact that our other allies in the international community feel like they are hiding in a little corner and almost whispering that they support us has no effect, and if they don’t speak up about how the US is treating Greenland, the situation will escalate day by day and American aggression will increase,” he told the Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq.
