“RED LINE”
Denmark and Greenland have stressed that sovereignty and territorial integrity would be a “red line” in the talks.
Nielsen said on Thursday he was not aware of the contents of the Trump-Rutte talks but insisted no deal could be made without involving Nuuk.
“Nobody else than Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have the mandate to make deals or agreements,” he told reporters.
Frederiksen has repeatedly said the same thing.
A Danish colony for three centuries, Greenland, which has around 57,000 inhabitants, gradually gained autonomy in the second half of the 20th century and obtained self-rule in 2009.
But Denmark’s assimilation policies – including de facto bans on the Inuit language and forced sterilisations – have left Greenlanders bitter and angry.
While an overwhelming majority of the island’s inhabitants support a decades-long drive for full independence, Trump’s threats over the past year have led to a warming of ties between Denmark and Greenland.
“Greenlanders still have a lot of grievances concerning Denmark’s lack of ability to reconsider its colonial past,” Ulrik Pram Gad, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, told AFP.
“But Trump’s pressure has prompted the wide majority of the (Greenlandic) political spectrum … to put the independence preparations – always a long-term project – aside for now.”