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Nordic diplomats rejected US President Donald Trump’s claims of Russian and Chinese vessels operating near Greenland, which he has invoked to justify his desire to seize the vast Arctic island from Denmark.
Two top Nordic diplomats with access to Nato intelligence briefings said there were no signs of Russian and Chinese ships or submarines in recent years around Greenland.
“It is simply not true that the Chinese and Russians are there. I have seen the intelligence. There are no ships, no submarines,” one senior diplomat said.
Another, from a different Nordic country, added: “This idea that the waters around Greenland are crawling with Russian and Chinese ships or submarines is just not true. They are in the Arctic, yes, but on the Russian side.”
Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s foreign minister, also rejected the claims. “It is not correct that there is a lot of activity from Russia or China around Greenland,’’ he told Norwegian broadcaster NRK this weekend. ‘‘There is [activity] in our neighbourhood. But around Greenland there is very little.”
Trump has used varying justifications for his desire to take control of the geopolitically vital island of just 57,000 people, from national security to mining interests. But he has repeatedly mentioned Russian and Chinese vessels as his rhetoric has grown more aggressive in recent weeks.
“Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” Trump said a week ago.
The US president added a few days later: “If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland.”
Both Greenlandic and Danish officials say there has been next to no interest from China since an attempt to help build several airports on the Arctic island was rebuffed by Denmark in 2018 under heavy pressure from the US.
“The US has been ensuring slowly but surely that Chinese influence disappears from Greenland,” a Greenlandic business executive said at the time.
A Greenlandic official added last year: “There has really been nothing from the Chinese since then. They had some small stakes in some mining projects, but they’re not proceeding.”
Eide and one of the senior Nordic diplomats said Russian submarines were active close to Norway, sailing from their base on the Kola Peninsula through the Barents Sea.
Danish and Greenlandic officials are open to closer co-operation with the US on Arctic security, and in particular securing the so-called GIUK gap between Greenland, Iceland and the UK. But they have been insistent that Greenland is not for sale.
Leaders of all five parties in Greenland’s parliament said late on Friday night in a joint statement: “We do not want to be Americans, we do not want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders.”
