US President Donald Trump announced that a framework for a deal on Greenland has been reached. He did not provide details, but said that he "is getting everything he wants" and that the deal will last "forever".
"We have a concept for a deal and it will be very good for the United States, but also for Europe and we will work together to do something for the Arctic as a whole and also for Greenland, and it has to do with security, good, strong security, and other things. "It's a little complicated," Trump said in an interview with CNBC during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
He also announced that European countries would participate in the United States' planned "Golden Dome" anti-missile system, for which Greenland is important.
"They will be included in the system and in the mineral rights, as we are."
Details of the Greenland agreement will be announced once they are finalized, White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt said.
A NATO official told CNN that one of the proposals that has been discussed among the alliance's member states is for Denmark to allow Washington to build more military bases on the island. He said they would be built on land that would then be considered sovereign American territory. It is not clear, however, whether such an idea will be part of the agreement announced by Trump.
A representative of Greenland in the Danish parliament wrote on Facebook that the organization has no right to negotiate on behalf of the Greenlanders and without their participation. Aja Chemnitz also emphasized that the Alliance cannot comment on the issue of the island's mineral wealth.
At the same time, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told Fox News that during his recent talks with the president, Denmark's sovereignty over Greenland was not discussed:
"He is very focused on what we can do to ensure the protection of this large region of the Arctic, where changes are currently taking place and where the Chinese and Russians are increasingly active. That was really the focus of our discussions."
The European Union also issued a statement that despite the latest developments in the situation around Greenland and Trump's refusal to impose tariffs on some countries, plans for an emergency meeting of European leaders today remain unchanged.
It is unclear whether the US president's announcement includes ownership of the island, but he previously told CNN that the agreement "puts everyone in a very good position".
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen reiterated that the United States' ownership of Greenland is a red line. He told Danish television that Washington's refusal to use force to acquire the territory was good news, but it was also clear that the president had ambitions that Copenhagen could not satisfy.
Rasmussen welcomed US President Donald Trump's refusal to impose additional tariffs on his country and seven other European countries for their resistance to US claims to annex Greenland.
For the first time, Trump rejected the possibility of using force to seize the island, and a little later in the evening he announced his decision on the tariffs, adding that he had reached a satisfactory agreement on the future of Greenland.
The markets responded to his statements with a jump in Wall Street stocks.
For his part, a NATO spokesman said that the Alliance countries would work together to ensure security in the Arctic. He said negotiations between Denmark, Greenland and the United States would continue to ensure that Russia or China would never "establish an economic or military foothold" on the island.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted by saying that Trump's attempts to acquire the Danish territory did not concern Moscow at all. He compared what is happening now to the purchase of Alaska, saying that the amount for the Arctic island could be between $200 million and $1 billion, money that he believed Washington could afford.
Commentary also came from Germany. Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil warned against excessive optimism about Donald Trump's statement.