A senior Greenland government official said Tuesday it’s “unfathomable” that the United States is discussing taking over a NATO ally and urged the Trump administration to listen to voices from the Arctic island’s people.
Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business and mineral resources, said people in Greenland are “very, very worried” over the administration’s desire for control of Greenland.
She spoke a day before a key meeting in Washington between foreign ministers of the semi-autonomous Danish territory and Denmark and top U.S. officials, at a time of increased tensions between the allies over the stepped-up U.S. rhetoric.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to provide details about what the support entailed.
“People are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Nathanielsen said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament.
Earlier, a Danish government official confirmed that Denmark provided U.S. forces in the east Atlantic with support last week as they intercepted an oil tanker for alleged violations of U.S. sanctions.