By Stine Jacobsen, Erin Banco and Gram Slattery
COPENHAGEN/WASHINGTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) – The US plans to reopen a former Cold War-era military base in southern Greenland and set up a military presence at an east coast base now used by the Danish dog sled patrol under an agreement to be signed by the US, Denmark and Greenland on Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Those sites are Narsarsuaq, whose population has dwindled to a few dozen people since the US closed its Bluie West One military base in the 1950s, and Mestersvig, a military outpost currently used by the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, a Danish special forces unit, said two of the people.
Denmark, Greenland and the United States are expected to sign their new agreement at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City at 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT) on Tuesday.
The text of the agreement has not been made public and the three people familiar with the deal, speaking on condition of anonymity, said its details are not finalized until it is signed.
The governments of Denmark and Greenland did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House also did not immediately respond.
Denmark says the agreement puts Arctic security under the watch of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military defense alliance, rather than leaving it solely to the US and Denmark.
The deal follows months of pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has long said he wants the US to control Greenland and had at times refused to rule out military or economic force to acquire the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
Trump’s threats, which peaked in January, triggered a diplomatic crisis within NATO and pushed Denmark and Greenland into negotiations with Washington aimed at defusing the pressure.
During the Cold War, the US maintained 17 military installations and more than 10,000 personnel in Greenland. Today only Pituffik Space Base remains, with some 150 US military personnel.
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen and Gram Slattery and Erin Banco in Washington; Additional reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen, and Phil Stewart and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Don Durfee and Nia Williams)
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