US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced he will hold talks with Denmark next week amid concerns over America’s desire to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland.
Marco Rubio’s statement to reporters following a closed-door briefing with US senators comes a day after the White House said US President Donald Trump had been discussing options including military force to acquire Greenland.
Concerns over the future of the territory resurfaced after Trump’s unilateral use of military force against Venezuela on Saturday to seize its President Nicolás Maduro.
The Trump administration says Greenland is vital to US security. Denmark says an attack would end the Nato military alliance.
“If the president identifies a threat to the national security of the United States, every president retains the option to address it through military means,” Rubio said on Wednesday.
“As a diplomat, which is what I am now, and what we work on, we always prefer to settle it in different ways – that included in Venezuela.”
Earlier in the day, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Rubio had “ruled out the possibility of an invasion” of Greenland in a phone call with him.
Barrot is to discuss the Arctic island, which is located in an area of strategic significance, with his German and Polish counterparts later on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, European leaders issued a joint statement rallying behind Denmark, which has been pushing back against Trump’s ambitions to own .
“Greenland belongs to its people, and only Denmark and Greenland can decide on matters concerning their relations,” the leaders of France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Denmark said in a joint statement.
Stressing they were as keen as the US on Arctic security, the European signatories said this must be achieved by Nato allies, including the US, “collectively”.
They also called for “upholding the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders”.
A day after the US military action in Venezuela, Katie Miller, the wife of one of Trump’s senior aides, posted a map on social media of Greenland in the colours of the US flag, alongside the word “SOON”.
On Monday, her husband, Stephen Miller, said it was “the formal position of the US government that Greenland should be part of the US”.
Morgan Angaju, 27, an Inuit living in Ilulissat in the west region of Greenland, said it had been “terrifying to listen to the leader of the free world laughing at Denmark and Greenland and just talking about us like we’re something to claim”.
