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Leaders from Denmark and Greenland will meet with prime U.S. officers in Washington on Wednesday to attempt to discover a method out of a disaster attributable to President Trump repeated calls for to annex Greenland.
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Leaders from Denmark and Greenland will meet with prime U.S. officers in Washington this Wednesday to attempt to discover a method out of a disaster attributable to President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for to annex Greenland all within the title of nationwide safety. The conferences will happen on the White Home, steered by the person many in Denmark see as essentially the most forceful advocate of constructing the large island an American one, Vice President JD Vance. From Copenhagen, Adrienne Murray has extra.
ADRIENNE MURRAY: Standing facet by facet, Denmark and Greenland’s leaders – in entrance of the information cameras – have been decided to indicate a united entrance earlier than speaking to the People. Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen emphatically rejected any takeover by america.
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PRIME MINISTER JENS-FREDERIK NIELSEN: (By way of interpreter) Greenland won’t be owned by the USA. Greenland won’t be ruled by the USA. Greenland won’t be a part of the USA. If we should select between the USA and Denmark, right here and now, we select Denmark. We select NATO. We selected the Kingdom of Denmark. We select the EU.
MURRAY: A dismal environment hung over Denmark’s parliament, Christiansborg, the place it has been one other day of pressing conferences between prime politicians and army officers in uniform. Getting on the aircraft to Washington for Wednesday’s assembly would be the Danish and Greenlandic overseas ministers. Denmark usually runs overseas coverage for Greenland, however these aren’t regular instances. For Denmark’s Lars Lokke Rasmussen, it is time to get again to good old school diplomacy.
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LARS LOKKE RASMUSSEN: (By way of interpreter) Our background for asking for this assembly is to maneuver this entire dialogue into a gathering room and look one another within the eye and talk about the matter.
MURRAY: However in Washington, they’re going to come head to head with a person who induced alarm and dismay throughout a current journey to Greenland, the place he referred to as Denmark a foul ally – Vice President JD Vance. They usually’re not more likely to see eye to eye, says Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher on the Danish Institute of Worldwide Affairs (ph).
ULRIK PRAM GAD: The factor is that the maximalist demand Trump insists on, so long as that is within the air, there isn’t any actual chance of ending the spat as a result of neither Denmark nor Greenlanders, after all, may give away Greenland to Trump. So so long as he insists on the maximalist demand, there isn’t any touchdown area.
MURRAY: The latest ballot in Greenland on the query suggests solely 6% of inhabitants need to be part of the U.S., whereas over 85% have been opposed. Even members of the political opposition from Greenland, comparable to Aki-Matilda Hoegh-Dam, say regardless of the issues the largely Indigenous inhabitants there might have had with the Danish mainland, becoming a member of the U.S. will not be the reply.
AKI-MATILDA HOEGH-DAM: Proper now, we do have a colonizer referred to as Denmark. We don’t need to be colonized once more by america. If we wish freedom and prosperity, we’ve to have these dialogues and a respectful plan.
MURRAY: As commuters pedaled dwelling from work by bicycle, on the capital’s snow-covered streets, the temper amongst Copenhageners is disbelief at President Trump’s threats, says Oliver Switton.
OLIVER SWITTON: With Trump’s energy strikes like his ego, and he simply acts like an enormous child. It is all him, all speak. And, like, possibly simply give attention to save your personal nation first earlier than, like, conquering every thing else.
MURRAY: For the individuals of Denmark and its autonomous territory, Greenland, there is a feeling of disbelief and little hope that high-level talks this week will make the issue go away anytime quickly. For NPR in Copenhagen, I am Adrienne Murray.
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