Greenland ‘chooses’ Denmark and EU, PM says ahead of Washington meeting

Greenland’s leader has rejected US talk of annexation and paused the Arctic territory’s push for separation from Copenhagen, ahead of a crucial meeting with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

After days of growing frustration in Nuuk amid strained relations with Denmark, a press conference on Tuesday afternoon in Copenhagen with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen reaffirmed the current relationship.

The show of unity comes ahead of talks in Washington, where Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic colleague Vivian Motzfeldt are set to meet with Vance and Rubio at the White House in Washington on Wednesday.

Ahead of the meeting, in his strongest rebuttal yet, Nielsen said that Greenland does not want to be “owned” or “governed” by the United States.

“If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark, we choose NATO … we choose the EU,” he said.

In a speech to the European Parliament in June, Nielsen delivered a similar message, saying that Greenland “is ready to move with the EU.”

Four of the five parties in the Greenlandic parliament are in favour of independence, including Nielsen’s own Demokraatit party, though he campaigned on a more cautious approach.

“But now is the time to stand together,” Nielsen said on Tuesday.

Although some of Nielsen’s government colleagues, including Motzfeldt, who is due to meet Vance on Wednesdasy, have called for Greenland to engage directly with the US without Danish involvement, Nielsen insisted that they must “go into the room together, and leave together.”

“We talk to the Americans together.”

“There are many indications that the most challenging part is yet to come,” Mette Frederiksen said ahead of Wednesday’s meeting.

(aw)