Nauseda urges NATO partners to work together on Greenland, wants Europe to have a say

VILNIUS - With US President Donald Trump making claims on Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda says that NATO members must address security issues together, adding that the people of Greenland and Denmark should decide the future of the island.

"We respect Denmark's territorial integrity and sovereignty, and we believe that all goals, including geopolitical and security goals, can be achieved by working together. Essentially, this is what NATO, as a collective defense organization we all belong to, obliges us to do: to address issues related to our security not individually, not against each other, but together," the Lithuanian president told reporters on Tuesday at the Seimas.

"No one from the outside can decide how a separate state should live and to whom it should belong or be subordinate. The people of Greenland and Denmark can decide of their own free will how they envision their future," he said.

Nauseda says he sometimes misses a stronger European voice in the international context, but vows not to "sit idly by."

"However, we will certainly not sit idly by, and we really want Europe to have a strong voice in international politics, because we often miss that voice and action," Nauseda emphasized.

BNS reported earlier that Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are set to discuss the situation in Greenland later this week.

US President Donald Trump said over the weekend that the United States would take over Greenland one way or another and warned that Russia and China would "take control" if Washington did not take action. Trump has expressed such intentions before.

Last week, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, together with Denmark, issued a joint statement expressing their support for Copenhagen and Greenland in their opposition to Trump.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has previously stated that any US attack on a NATO ally would mean the end of 80 years of transatlantic security ties.

The vast majority of the island's residents and political parties have said they do not want to be controlled by the US and have emphasized that Greenlanders themselves must decide their future.