Greenland party leaders issued a joint statement [12] Jan. 9 asserting that the autonomous territory rejects the US calls for acquisition. Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four other party leaders stated: "We don't want to be Americans, we don't want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders."
The world's largest island, an autonomous territory under the Kingdom of Denmark, has been at the center of international controversy since President Donald Trump announced his ambition to acquire Greenland for the United States, citing a supposed design on the territory by Russia and China.
President Trump commented [13] also Jan. 9 that the US is "going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not." Trump's interest in Greenland goes back to his first term, when the president acquiring the territory "essentially a large real estate deal [17]."
According [18] to the Atlantic Council, the Arctic is now the scene of a large contest, in which Russia and China are increasing their footprint in the region. Greenland is an important asset, with its defense mechanisms, such as early warning systems and missile tracking radar feeding directly into US homeland defense.
In a poll [19]carried out by Verian for the Danish news media Berlingske and the Greenlandic media house Sermitsiaq, 85% of Greenlanders do not want to be a part of the US, while 6% replied that they do. The remaining 9% were undecided. Another poll [20]by YouGov shows that 16% of interviewed Americans consider Greenland a "very important issue" to US national security, 22% answered “somewhat important” and 12 percent said "not very important."
Reacting to the dispute, French President Emmanuel Macron stated [14] that the US is exempting itself from the international rules it had long promoted until just recently. Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul stated that the "fate of Greenland will be decided by Greenlanders and the Kingdom of Denmark," adding that the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and inviolability of borders are UN principles which must be upheld.
From JURIST [21], Jan. 11. Used with permission.
