Italy PM says does not believe US will attack Greenland
AFP :
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Friday she does not believe the United States will attack Greenland, but that its “assertive methods” were intended to dissuade interference from other countries.
Meloni said Nato should focus more on the Arctic region and ensure a “significant presence” of allies to preserve security and keep out hostile countries.
The far-right leader and Donald Trump ally is often an outlier in Europe for defending the positions of the US president, who has offered to buy Greenland and refused to rule out military action against the Danish-ruled Arctic territory.
“I still do not believe in the hypothesis that the United States will take military action to take control of Greenland, an option that I clearly would not agree with,” Meloni told journalists in an annual New Year’s press conference.
Such an option would not “be in anyone’s interest, not even in the interest of the United States of America.’
“I think that the Trump administration, with its somewhat assertive, very assertive methods, is focusing above all on the strategic importance of Greenland and the Arctic region in general for its interests and security,” said Meloni.
“I continue to believe that the message the US wants to send is that it will not accept excessive interference from other foreign actors in an area so strategic for its security and interests,” she said.
It was up not just to Europe but to Nato to “initiate a serious debate” on the Arctic as a priority.
Italy itself was drawing up an Arctic strategy, she said, with objectives including preserving peace and security, helping Italian companies invest, and promoting research, especially related to climate change.
“The best way to prevent problems… is to ensure that there is a serious and significant presence of the Atlantic alliance, in short, of allies in the Arctic, and that they also involve Greenland,” she said.
“So that together we can respond to a concern that I understand on the part of the United States, which is that of not having excessive interference from other actors who could also be hostile.”