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Greenland: Danish PM Frederiksen against Washington: ‘You don’t spy on allies’

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Danish PM reacts strongly to revelations about US intelligence operations in Greenland

Denmark reacted with outrage to the Wall Street Journal’s revelations that the US had intensified its spying activities in Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory that has long been at the centre of US strategic and mining interests.

‘You cannot spy on an ally,’ Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in response to the investigation alleging US intelligence concentration on the island’s independence movement and public sentiment about US resource extraction.

The affair triggered a diplomatic crisis. Yesterday, the American Chargé d’Affaires in Copenhagen, Jennifer Hall Godfrey, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for urgent clarification. Undersecretary Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen expressed concern, while Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen described the leaked information as ‘very serious’: ‘We do not spy on each other among friends, the matter is being thoroughly examined’.

Even from Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, came a clear condemnation. Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen called the American operations ‘unacceptable and disrespectful’, accusing Washington of lacking transparency towards the Greenlandic people.

On the American side, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did not deny the contents of the investigation, but shifted the focus to the leak of information. ‘Those who leak classified information will be prosecuted. The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed for helping the deep state sabotage the president. They are breaking the law and undermining national security,’ he said at a press conference, announcing three reports to the Justice Department.

The episode rekindles tensions between Washington and Copenhagen that had already surfaced in 2019, when then-President Trump proposed to buy Greenland, prompting irritation from the Danish government.

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