NUUK: Denmark’s King Frederik X arrived in Greenland on Wednesday for a three-day visit in a show of support for the autonomous Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump.

The 57-year-old monarch waved to well-wishers brandishing Greenlandic flags at Nuuk airport as he was greeted by the territory’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

“It is a great pleasure for me to be back in Greenland and to meet the Greenlandic people,,” the king told reporters after a meeting with Nielsen. He added that Greenland’s people and wellbeing were “very close to my heart.” “They always have been. They always will be,” he said.

Trump’s threats to seize the vast mineral-rich Arctic island, by force if necessary, have ratcheted up tensions between the United States and Denm­ark. Frederik spent on Wednesday in Greenland’s capital Nuuk to start the highly symbolic visit.

After talks with Nielsen, the king toured a high school and a fisheries company, and was due to take part in a social coffee break with locals at a cultural centre.

On Thursday he was to head to Maniitsoq, some 150 kilometres north of Nuuk, before visiting a Danish military Arctic training centre in Kangerlussuaq, farther north, on Friday.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2026