Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen weighed in on the report that the United States has stepped up its spying efforts on Greenland, telling The Associated Press that “you cannot spy against an ally.”
“Cooperation about defense and deterrence and security in the northern part of Europe is getting more and more important,” Frederiksen told the AP Friday. “Of course, you cannot spy against an ally.”
The Danish prime minister’s remarks come as President Trump has reaffirmed his wish for Greenland, the world’s largest island, to become a part of the U.S., an idea strongly rejected by Denmark. Trump has not ruled out taking the island by force.
“I don’t rule it out. I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there,” Trump said while on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of and we’ll cherish them and all of that, but we need that for international security,” the president added.
Greenland’s officials have said the Arctic island, a semiautonomous Danish territory, is not for sale.
The U.S. has intensified its intelligence-gathering efforts in Greenland. Several high-ranking officials, under the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, directed agency leaders to gather more information about the attitudes of U.S. resource extraction on the island and Greenland’s independence movement, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday evening, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
In response, Gabbard said the paper “should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the President by politicizing and leaking classified information. They are breaking the law and undermining our nation’s security and democracy.”
Following the Journal’s explosive report, the acting head of the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen, Jennifer Hall Godfrey, met with Danish diplomat Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen on Thursday, multiple outlets reported.
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