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U.S. to Return Land to Denmark
Europe Daily ^
| September 24 2002
| AP
Posted on 09/24/2002 5:46:00 PM PDT by knighthawk
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) The United States will return to Denmark a section of the U.S. air base at Thule in northern Greenland, the Danish government announced Tuesday.
For decades Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory, has bristled at U.S. military restrictions on the so-called Dundas area, which is within the base but no longer used.
The local government of Premier Jonathan Motzfeldt wants to give the area back to the Inuit population who consider it an important hunting region.
NATO-member Denmark handles the foreign and defense policy of the world's largest island. Thule is 310 miles south of the North Pole.
In 1951, Denmark and the United States signed a defense agreement setting up four rent-free bases in Greenland. All the bases except for Thule have since been shut down.
When the Thule base was created in 1953, the Dundas area was incorporated as part of a security perimeter and declared a military zone.
The agreement was brokered Monday and made public Tuesday. Details, including the size of the portion to be returned to Denmark, were not announced.
A formal text is to be signed later this year in Nuuk, Greenland's capital.
TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1950s; 1951; 1953; 2002; 200209; base; denmark; dundas; greenland; pituffik; pituffikspacebase; thule; us
To: MizSterious; rebdov; Nix 2; green lantern; BeOSUser; Brad's Gramma; dreadme; keri; Turk2; ...
Ping
To: knighthawk
What will they ask for next, the Virgin Islands? We gotta draw a line!
3
posted on
09/24/2002 5:49:33 PM PDT
by
Shermy
To: Shermy
Ah yes! Thule, Greenland. We were told there is a woman behind every tree. I never got closer than Goose Bay.
To: Shermy
They are only asking for their land back that isn't being used.
I can name 5 bases we had in Greenland during the 60's. Thule AFB, Camp Tuto, Camp Century, Tuto East, and Tuto West. So I'm not sure that the story is exactly correct.
Read my story about my Greenland experience at :
5
posted on
09/24/2002 6:01:10 PM PDT
by
Lokibob
To: Lokibob; knighthawk
Fantastic story, Lokibob
6
posted on
09/24/2002 6:47:29 PM PDT
by
Shermy
To: Lokibob
Doafat tell a good story?
To: knighthawk
Amazing, looking at Greenland from trans-Atlantic flights and all you can see from 40,000 feet up is snow and ice, ice and snow...all the way to the horizon. Mix in a glacier here and there and that's it. Hard to believe people live there, let alone have a government.
To: Citizen of the Savage Nation
There was this documentary about such people. Once a year there was a supply ship, but usualy the store was empty. But they were happy there.
To: Citizen of the Savage Nation
Those were my thoughts as I read this.
We skirted the coast one time on a clear day. All I could see was innumerable icebergs and sheer cliffs rising to an endlessly white landscape. The quintessence of desolation.
10
posted on
09/25/2002 3:59:25 AM PDT
by
Skooz
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