COPENHAGEN: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Her comments came in response to US President Donald Trump’s renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island to come under US control in the aftermath of the weekend military operation in Venezuela.
The dead-of-night operation by US forces in Caracas to capture leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife early Saturday left the world stunned, and heightened concerns in Denmark and Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and thus part of NATO.
Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens Frederik Nielsen, blasted the president’s comments and warned of catastrophic consequences. Numerous European leaders expressed solidarity with them. “If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday.