Denmark summons US envoy over espionage allegations

Denmark summoned the head of the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday after allegations emerged that three Americans with close ties to President Donald Trump were running “covert influence operations” in Greenland.

Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to “get” Greenland, a huge, strategically important island, mostly in the Arctic, that is a territory of Denmark.

Within hours of the allegations, published by Denmark’s main public broadcaster Wednesday morning, the Danish Foreign Ministry summoned the current head of the embassy, the chargé d’affaires, for a meeting.

“We are aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland,” said Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister, in a statement Wednesday. “Any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the kingdom will of course be unacceptable.”

Rasmussen called the summons a “preventive conversation.”

The allegations followed reports this spring that U.S. intelligence agencies were stepping up spying operations in Greenland, news that had also created a stir in Denmark.

According to the report by the public broadcaster, three unnamed Americans, including two who were said to have previously worked for Trump, have traveled back and forth to Greenland gathering information and cultivating contacts as part of the “covert influence operations.”

Denmark has repeatedly rejected Trump’s insistence that the United States take over Greenland. Trump has been pushing the idea for years, first offering to buy the island from Denmark and then, when that did not work, threatening to get it “one way or the other” and refusing to rule out using military force.

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