US spies stoked separatism in Greenland, Denmark says

Denmark has accused US agents of trying to foment separatism in Greenland, reigniting fears over the territory's future. 

Danish officials briefed Danish national broadcaster DR on Wednesday (27 August) that three US citizens linked to the administration had covertly visited the island to recruit backers for a split from Denmark and annexation by the US. 

The Danish foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, summoned the top US diplomat in Copenhagen, chargé d'affaires Mark Stroh, to issue a formal complaint. 

"If anyone thinks they can influence it by creating a 'fifth column' or that type of activity, then it is contrary to the way states cooperate ... It's important for us to speak out very clearly against the United States," Rasmussen told press.

Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said: "Any interference in internal affairs in the kingdom of Denmark, and Greenlandic democracy, is unacceptable".

"The Americans do not clearly deny that the situation is as DR presents today. And that is, of course, serious," she added.

Danish intelligence agency PET also said Nuuk was "the target of influence campaigns of various kinds".

"PET expects that such campaigns have the purpose of creating a split in the relationship between Denmark and Greenland", it added.

Greenland, which has a population of just 57,000, is an autonomous Danish territory, with vast mineral resources and a strategic location due to changing Arctic trade routes, which US president Donald Trump has said he wants to annex, using force if necessary. 

Tensions peaked when US vice-president JD Vance visited a US military base in Greenland in March and denigrated Danish rule in his speech. 

And ordinary Greenlanders declined to meet him or his wife at the time on their walkabout for TV cameras, in a sign of ill will.

"This [alleged US espionage operation] means the whole misery over Greenland isn't over", former Danish foreign minister Martin Lidegaard told broadcaster TV2 on Wednesday.

For its part, the US state department said the three US citizens in the DR report weren't on official business. 

"The US government does not control or direct the actions of private citizens," it told DR. 

"The Danes need to calm down," a White House official also told Reuters. 

Greenland held elections in March, in which a pro-business and Danish-friendly party, the Democrats, beat the US-friendly Naleraq opposition party. 

But Greenland's foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, downplayed the DR subversion story. 

"There is nothing new in what I have been presented with, beyond what we already know," she told Greenland's Sermitsiaq newspaper. 

Pele Broberg, the head of Naleraq, said: "Should we never talk to anybody but Denmark? We don't get what the big issue is right now". 

"The Danish, French, and German governments are trying to influence the Greenlandic government every single day … It's just business as usual," he added. 

And Frederiksen, also on Wednesday, for the first time in history, apologised for Denmark's forced sterilisation of Inuit women between 1966 and 1991 - a leading cause of separatist feeling among Greenland's indigenous people.

Aaja Chemnitz, an MP from Greenland's Inuit Ataqatigiit opposition party, said: "We have seen before that they [the US] have been trying to influence the people of Greenland, but of course also Greenlandic politicians. This is just a continuation".

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