Danish prime minister says a US takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Monday an American takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of the NATO military alliance. Her comments came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's renewed call for the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island to come under U.S. control in the aftermath of the weekend military operation in Venezuela.

The dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas to capture leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife early Saturday left the world stunned, and heightened concerns in Denmark and Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of the Danish kingdom and thus part of NATO.

Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens Frederik Nielsen, blasted the president's comments and warned of catastrophic consequences. Numerous European leaders expressed solidarity with them.

“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Monday. “That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.”

Trump called repeatedly during his presidential transition and the early months of his second term for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has not ruled out military force to take control of the island. His comments Sunday, including telling reporters “let’s talk about Greenland in 20 days,” further deepened fears that the U.S. was planning an intervention in Greenland in the near future.

Frederiksen also said Trump “should be taken seriously” when he says he wants Greenland. “We will not accept a situation where we and Greenland are threatened in this way,” she added.

Nielsen, in a news conference Monday, said Greenland cannot be compared to Venezuela. He urged his constituents to stay calm and united.

“We are not in a situation where we think that there might be a takeover of the country overnight and that is why we are insisting that we want good cooperation,” he said.

Nielsen added: “The situation is not such that the United States can simply conquer Greenland.”

Ask Rostrup, a TV2 political journalist, wrote on the station's live blog Monday that Mette previously would have flatly rejected the idea of an American takeover of Greenland. But now, Rostrup wrote, the rhetoric has escalated so much that she has to acknowledge the possibility.

Trump on Sunday also mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.

“It’s so strategic right now,” Trump had told reporters Sunday as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”

He added: “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it."

But Ulrik Pram Gad, a global security expert from the Danish Institute for International Studies, wrote in a report last year that “there are indeed Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic, but these vessels are too far away to see from Greenland with or without binoculars.”

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled this weekend by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON.”

“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Ambassador Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark’s chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

The U.S. Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland. It was built following a 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States. It supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

On Denmark’s mainland, the partnership between the U.S. and Denmark has been long-lasting. The Danes buy American F-35 fighter jets and just last year, Denmark’s parliament approved a bill to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil.

Critics say the vote ceded Danish sovereignty to the U.S. The legislation widens a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.

Ciobanu reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Dazio from Berlin.

Greenland's Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen holds a press conference in Nuuk, Greenland, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. (Oscar Scott Carl/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

Greenland's Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen holds a press conference in Nuuk, Greenland, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026. (Oscar Scott Carl/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

FILE - Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, left, and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, speak on April 27, 2025, in Marienborg, Denmark. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it is scrapping the safety screening for two reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in central Japan after the plant's operator was found to have fabricated data about earthquake risks, in a setback to Japan's attempts to accelerate reactor restarts to boost nuclear energy use.

Chubu Electric Power Co. had applied for safety screening to resume operations at the No. 3 and 4 reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in 2014 and 2015. Two other reactors at the plant are being decommissioned, and a fifth is idle.

The plant, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Tokyo, is located on a coastal area known for potential risks from so-called Nankai Trough megaquakes.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said it started an internal investigation in February after receiving a tip from a whistleblower that the utility had for years provided fabricated data that underestimated potential seismic risks.

The regulator suspended the screening for the reactors after it confirmed the falsification and the utility acknowledged the fabrication in mid-December, said Shinsuke Yamanaka, the watchdog's chair. The NRA is also considering inspecting the utility headquarters.

“Ensuring safety is the first and foremost responsibility for nuclear plant operators and (data fabrication) is an act of betrayal to their task and one that destroys nuclear safety," Yamanaka said.

The scandal surfaced Monday when Chubu Electric President Kingo Hayashi acknowledged that workers at the utility used inappropriate seismic data with an alleged intention to underestimate seismic risks and apologized. He pledged to establish an independent panel for investigation.

The screening, including data that had been approved earlier, would have to start from scratch or possibly be rejected entirely, Yamanaka said.

The move is a setback at a time Japan's government seeks to accelerate reactor restarts to cope with rising energy costs and pressure to reduce carbon emissions.

Public opinion in Japan remains divided due to lingering safety concerns after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns.

Of Japan's 57 commercial reactors, 13 are currently in operation, 20 are offline and 24 others are being decommissioned, according to NRA.

This aerial photo shows Hamaoka nuclear power plant, owned by the Cubu Electric Power Co., in Omaezaki, central Japan, March 26, 2025. (Minoru Iwasaki/Kyodo News via AP)