Greenland will not be sidelined in its future, minister says

Greenland will shape its own future in partnership with its allies, Foreign Minister Múte B. Egede said in a speech at the Arctic Circle forum, according to mbl.is.

Egede said the Arctic was not primarily a military region, a shipping route or a map of resources for Greenlanders. “It is our home. Our family,” he said, adding that families live there and children grow up there, while Greenlandic language and culture were formed there.

He said Greenland had been a colony for generations, with decisions about its land and people made elsewhere. “We will not go back to that,” he said. “Our future is ours to shape, and we want to shape it in cooperation with our friends and partners.” He cited a recent agreement with the United States and Denmark as an example of modern cooperation.

Egede said recent months had brought pressure and uncertainty for Greenlanders, but that they had stood together, held to their principles and chosen dialogue and diplomacy. He said the agreement respected Greenland, strengthened shared security and allowed the parties to continue together as allies.

“Diplomacy is not weakness,” he said, describing it as the way responsible nations find common ground, even under heavy pressure. He added that decisions about Greenland had too often been made without its people having a voice, but that its future would now be shaped with them.

Egede said Greenland was leading the Danish Kingdom’s chairmanship of the Arctic Council for the first time, with a Greenlander in charge and bearing political responsibility. “Governments come and go, political circumstances change, but the people of the Arctic will remain, and we will still have to live here tomorrow,” he said.