President Trump will meet later Tuesday with the leaders of Greenland and Denmark to formally sign a deal that will bolster America’s military presence on the world’s largest island, ending a standoff that had hindered US-European relations.
A formal text of the agreement, announced by Trump Friday evening and confirmed by Copenhagen soon after, was not publicly available Tuesday morning. However, three people familiar with negotiations told Reuters the deal will give the US full control over two additional military sites.
In addition to the existing Pituffik Space Base, the US will also have access to Narsarsuaq, a former World War II and Cold War-era airbase surrounded by a settlement whose population has dwindled to just a few dozen; and Mestersvig, currently used by the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish special forces unit.
Trump said on Friday that the deal gives the US “permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland.” Denmark has not responded to Trump’s assertion but has said the agreement respects the kingdom’s sovereignty and Greenland’s right to self-determination.
Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has said the agreement will place Arctic security under NATO’s collective watch rather than leaving it to Washington and Copenhagen alone.
Greenland, a former colony and now a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, sits between the Arctic and North America and holds vast energy resources.
Trump’s refusal to rule out military or economic force to acquire it triggered a diplomatic crisis in January within NATO and forced Denmark and the island’s government into intensive negotiations.
It remains unclear whether the agreement amends a 1951 defense treaty that has been the legal basis for the US presence, or operates as a new framework.
The deal marks a retreat from Trump’s earlier ambitions for an outright acquisition of Greenland, but does constitute the first major expansion of US military infrastructure since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The US maintained 17 installations and over 10,000 personnel on Greenland at the height of the Cold War.
With Post wires
