Then Greenland/Denmark and the United States meet physically.
It will be Naalakkersuisoq for foreign affairs, Vivian Motzfeldt and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who will meet with the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
It is still too early with the time and place, says a happy and relieved Naalakkersuisoq for foreign affairs Vivian Motzfeldt:
- Now we have secured a direct dialogue with the USA, and of course I am happy and relieved that we can now meet and talk to each other, and it is my greatest hope that the meeting will lead to a normalization of our relationship, says Vivian Motzfeldt to Sermitsiaq.
"Greenland needs the USA and the USA needs Greenland"
What messages should be brought from Greenland to Marco Rubio?
- Most importantly, my message will be that Greenland needs the USA and the USA needs Greenland when it comes to security in the Arctic. We have been friends and allies for many years, and that cooperation has always run smoothly, and that relationship must be rebuilt so that we can continue in mutual trust and respect.
- In addition, I would like to emphasize that Greenland still wants to build up the direct cooperation between Greenland and the USA and through the Joint Committee, Vivian Motzfeldt answers and continues:
- We would also like to know why it was necessary for the US to make such aggressive statements, so that we do not talk past each other in the future, we are friends and allies.
But do you think that the harsh rhetoric can be stopped and things become normalized?
- The upcoming meeting will hopefully not be the last meeting, because we want dialogue with the United States and, as I said, we want our cooperation to continue and things to be normalized.
- But if we can also get a guarantee that we will not again experience something being said and done differently from the US side, it has been like taking one step forward and two steps back for a year now.
Greenland is under the Kingdom of Denmark and laws and regulations must be observed
The opposition party has called on Naalakkersuisut to hold a meeting itself with the USA and without Denmark, but it does not go ahead:
- We are politicians who must work under the law, and we have rules for how we must solve the tasks in the Kingdom.
- We have a Self-Government Act, and in the Self-Government Act there are five basic principles that we must observe as long as we have not achieved statehood. We have to keep that in mind, otherwise we would be breaking the law, and it is not possible to circumvent laws and regulations, even if we want to rule the country ourselves.
- We have worked for and obtained greater powers and, for example, bilateral relations, which do not circumvent our obligations according to the legislation, anything else would be destructive to our credibility as a country.
The meeting with the American foreign minister will therefore take place next week. Vivian states that the time and place will be announced later.
