COPENHAGEN, April 9 - Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Thursday rebutted critical remarks aimed at the Arctic territory by U.S. President Donald Trump, stressing that Greenland is a proud nation committed to sustaining the international order established after World War Two.
Nielsen responded after Trump, amid expressions of frustration with NATO as relations reached a crisis point over the Iran war, said the military alliance had not been there when needed and reiterated his memory of Greenland as a "BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE".
"What is important for us is that we maintain the world community that we have built after World War Two, where we have a defence alliance that we respect, and where we have international law respected by all sides," Nielsen told Reuters. "Those things are being challenged now, and I think all allies should stand together to try to maintain them. I hope that will happen."
The prime minister's remarks come after NATO allies earlier in the year had been working to find ways to preserve alliance cohesion following renewed attention from Trump on the question of Greenland, which he had revived as a potential purchase from Denmark.
Nielsen explicitly rejected the depiction of his country as merely an uninhabited expanse of ice. "We are not some piece of ice. We are a proud population of 57,000 people, working every single day as good global citizens in full respect for all our allies," he said.
His comments frame Greenland as a community that seeks to contribute to and uphold the structures of international cooperation and legal norms that he said were established in the aftermath of World War Two. At the same time, they reflect concern about growing strains within NATO amid disagreements linked to the Iran war and related policy tensions.
For now, Nielsen urged collective action among allies to defend the postwar arrangements and international law, calling on partners to stand together to address the challenges he identified.