Russia will maintain its presence in the Arctic and is interested in peace and stability in the region, spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said
Moscow has called for peace and stability to be maintained in the Arctic after US President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to annex Greenland for national security and economic purposes.
The incoming president has refused to rule out taking the Danish autonomous territory, which is rich in gold and uranium and is believed to have vast oil reserves in its territorial waters, by military force if necessary.
Speaking to journalists at a press briefing on Thursday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov highlighted that the Arctic is also in the sphere of Russia’s national and strategic interests.
“We are present in the Arctic zone, and we will continue to be present there,” Peskov said, adding that Russia is “interested in maintaining an atmosphere of peace and stability” in the region and is “ready to cooperate with all countries of the world in the name of this peace and stability.”
Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, has also emphasized that Russia aims to keep the Arctic stable and warned that “an attempt to strengthen US national security at the expense of other countries… will be taken into account by Russia in its military planning.”
Barbin also stated that the fate of Greenland should be decided only on the basis of the will of its people within the framework of current Danish legislation and without “interference from outside.”
Former Russian President and the deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has also described Trump’s plans as “over the top and eccentric – and totally unworkable.”
Trump floated the intention of gaining control over the Panama Canal and buying Greenland from Denmark earlier this week. He argued that control over the Arctic island was an “absolute necessity” for US national security.
“People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it,” he told journalists at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
The Danish government and Greenland’s leaders, however, have repeatedly rejected the idea of selling the autonomous territory. Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede stated that “we are not for sale, and we will not be for sale.”
