Greenland’s prime minister mentioned on Monday the Danish autonomous territory was open to nearer ties with the USA, in areas equivalent to mining, a Greenlandic broadcaster reported.
“We have to do enterprise with the US. We’ve begun to begin a dialogue and search alternatives for cooperation with [Donald] Trump,” Mute Egede mentioned at a press convention in Greenland, in response to public broadcaster KNR.
He added that the territory had its “doorways open by way of mining”.
“It is going to be the identical within the coming years. We’ve to commerce with the US,” he mentioned, in response to KNR.
Nevertheless, Egede didn’t give any indication the island could be open to a US takeover.
US president-elect Donald Trump, who takes workplace on January 20, set off alarm bells final week when he refused to rule out army intervention to convey the Panama Canal and Greenland underneath US management.
Vice chairman-elect, JD Vance, in an interview with broadcaster Fox Information over the weekend, famous that the US already has “troops in Greenland”, at a army base within the northwest.
Along with its strategic location, Greenland, which is searching for independence from Denmark, holds large untapped mineral and oil reserves, though oil and uranium exploration are banned.
Trump’s Republican allies within the US Home of Representatives try to construct assist for a invoice on authorising talks for the acquisition of Greenland, in response to a replica of the invoice circulated for co-sponsors on Monday, Reuters reported.
Trump first claimed that he wished to purchase Greenland in 2019 throughout his first time period as president – a proposal swiftly rebuffed by Greenland and Denmark.
Throughout a go to to Denmark final week, Egede mentioned that the Arctic territory was “coming into a brand new period, in a brand new 12 months the place Greenland is within the centre of the world”.
He mentioned that Greenland would proceed to cooperate with the US, however harassed that this may be by itself phrases and that it was “the Greenlandic individuals who determine their future”.
“We don’t wish to be Danes. We don’t wish to be Individuals. After all, we wish to be Greenlanders,” he mentioned.
With Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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