Denmark thanks UK PM Starmer for Greenland support

London, Jan 22 (PTI) Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen Thursday thanked her UK counterpart Keir Starmer for Britain's "strong support" during "quite a difficult time” for Denmark after repeated threats by US President Donald Trump to annex its semi-autonomous territory of Greenland.
    During a meeting at Starmer's countryside residence of Chequers in Buckinghamshire, Frederiksen welcomed his calm approach to the serious crisis for Europe, which was averted after Trump backed down from his trade war threat on Wednesday night.
    The reversal of the additional 10 per cent tariffs on British exports to the US followed intensive talks with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) chief Mark Rutte in Davos, Switzerland, welcomed by Starmer as a "good thing".
    "I like the British way of doing things. As you said, you are very pragmatic: you have a cup of tea, and then you think a bit about everything," said Frederiksen.
    "You put the facts on the table, and then you find a way forward. I think we've got to get by with a little help from our friends," she said, quoting from the lyrics of a popular Beatles song from the 1960s.  
    The Danish PM said it was important that "Europeans stand together" and didn't get divided during the crisis, which Downing Street said had been averted as a result of "serious behind-the-scenes diplomacy". 
    "Now we can start hard yards and finding a way forward on security in the Arctic, which may seem a long way away, pretty remote, but actually it does matter to all of us in terms of the safety and security of our country," Starmer told reporters earlier during a visit to Hertfordshire. 
    "And we've got through the last few days with a mix of British pragmatism, common sense, but also that British sense of sticking to our values and our principles. 
    "But now, as I say, the hard yards of actually finding a better way for security for our country, for Europe and across the globe," he said. 
    The Greenland agreement was reached when Trump met Rutte on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the US President indicated some arrangement over the region's rare earth minerals. 
    UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC from Davos that the agreement was around security, with an "Arctic sentry" allowing NATO countries to work together on a "shared threat" and different Arctic countries coming together, supported by other NATO countries. 
    She also dismissed the UK joining Trump's so-called Board of Peace over concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin's possible participation.
    The foreign minister said that though Britain was invited to join, the new board is a "legal treaty that raises much broader issues" than the initiative's initial focus on ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. 
    "We won't be one of the signatories today because this is a legal treaty that raises much broader issues. 
    "And we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something that's talking about peace when we've still not seen any signs from Putin that there will be commitment to peace in Ukraine," she said. 
    The charter agreed in Davos declared the Board of Peace, which also includes Pakistan, as an international organisation mandated to carry out peace-building functions under international law.
    Trump will serve as chairman and US representative, holding authority to appoint executive board members and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies. 

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)